


Holy Fire

by AkaiEngarde, tendderpreyyy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Choking, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, Intercrural Sex, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, One-Sided Attraction, Oral Sex, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, also just the tip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-05-13 00:39:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14738834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkaiEngarde/pseuds/AkaiEngarde, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendderpreyyy/pseuds/tendderpreyyy
Summary: A described OC extravaganza and heavily whimsical and mystical AU set against the backdrop of a slightly different Outback and Junkertown/Junk-country. The same Jamison we know and love but with that incredible drive focused on taking back what his community lost... With Divine retribution of course.





	1. No good deed goes unpunished

**Author's Note:**

> Myself and @welcome2-thesinbin have been hard at work since that little tidbit about Jamison being Catholic was released… Because I can’t let anything be nice and not dark as fuq it of course led to ‘Jamison believes he is destined to save the world from wickedness, bathe it in holy and purifying fire.’ But of course he needs some help from Rae. She’s the perfect catalyst.  
> As a person whose dad went to Catholic school but was not raised in a religious environment, i took some liberties for sure. Used a lot of small town isolation and resentment to world build this one. This is REALLY about cults and brainwashing. The religious stuff is just convenient window dressings, pomp, circumstances and all. I've always wanted to write a religiously themed piece. ENJOY I GUESS?

Turning the last deadbolt on her way out of the free clinic with a resounding grinding noise, has Rae wincing in the dim halo of the streetlights. The heavy master ring rattles in her coat pocket, clear and tinkling. 

As if on cue, across town the cathedral’s bells ring out against the velvet night sky. Haunting and beautiful yes, but also rather recent. 

Popping up her collar against the bite of the chill air whipping up and down the alleys, but it does nothing for her legs and her knees knock with every step. Turning down a side street in hopes to avoid the wind tunnel effect from traffic along the arterial route and thinking, ‘They never used to ring the bell for midnight mass. I guess the flocks been wandering too far these days.’ Rae sidesteps around garbage bags stacked higher than her knees, pulled open by rats and people alike just hoping for a good meal. Bringing a hand to her nose helps to block out the stink, but Rae still finds her eyes scanning the bags. 

‘It’s always more of the same; people eat out of bins and line up around the block to get antibiotics for dental accesses… While the powers that be insist on another bail out.’ The echo of her shoes bounces off the brickwork, the only sound until a can rolls out in front of her. Rae watches with mild fascination as the pitted metal rolls to a stop, it takes longer than it should. There was force applied to it.

“ H-hello?” She announces her presence, unhappy to have intruded on someone’s snack and unsure how her passing would be received. A skinny ankle is next to appear from under the refuse pile nearest her left. 

Rae can tell, even in the dim light this strangers foot is bare and bloody; his boot thrown nearly three feet away and reeking like piss even evident from where she is rooted to the spot. 

‘ What the-’ 

Even after a ten hour shift Rae is crouching beside the man and tossing bits of cardboard off of his emaciated form. His ribs are beaten on both sides to ugly shades of yellow with one of his eyes swollen shut and the shade of a ripened plum.

‘Someone hated this guy… several someones, by the looks of it. I can’t leave him here.’ Rae sees him in full, spread out on the concrete with trails of still wet blood curling out from his mouth. Lowering her ear to the stranger’s reddened lips Rae hears his labored breathing, ‘ All things considered that’s a good sign. He’s just had the piss taken out of him, but he’s breathing fine… Tougher than shoe leather, I guess.’ Her hands are still fluttering over his heaving sides, tracing strange and winding scars that long predate his (most) recent run of bad luck. 

His clothing is sparse for the time of year, and stranger yet are clearly homemade stitches on the thin sleeves that covered his hands. One of his hands is nothing but bloody knuckles with black-tipped elegant (?) fingers adorned with a few golden rings, while on the right was a prosthetic. The back of his jacket (?) fanning out a bit under him is in tatters while the front hangs open to reveal his lean, filthy chest and strange tangle of necklaces.   
‘ He isn’t even from here, looks like he’s some street preacher type from out in the bush.’ Peering down her nose and stopping for a moment to adjust her glasses, Rae spots a sickly green and alarmingly beautiful rosary about his neck. 

“ Help?” The voice grating out of him shocks Rae enough she reflexively tries to support his back, falling back into her day’s routines instantly-

“ Fuck- er, stay calm sir… I’ve got you, can you sit up?” With her metal palm under him he can certainly, lurching forward to look into her eyes. One of his eyes seems to have trouble focusing but he’s grinning at her already, all bloody teeth.   
‘ I can’t take him to a hospital. They don’t treat Junkers, they’ll just turn him in.’

The man smiles at her like he’s got a secret, bruises or no his mouth forms around a wheezing sigh that peters into laughter. His eyes are arresting and seemingly lit from within, making it easy for Rae to watch his rolling pupils for any damage.   
“ You’re even better- even more radiant than I ever-” The stranger’s face drains of what little (healthy) color it had and he’s out again. Slack against her now, Rae loops his arms around her neck; twisting him up and onto her back. 

With the first step Rae has steeled her resolve. His foot drags behind her and the scraping of more metal from her right, but it’s scarcely another two blocks from her apartment. Focused on his breathing, Rae allows muscle memory to carry them both to the front of the building; blessedly no one was around to see her dragging some derro in out of the cold. With the heat and lights, he’s aware enough to groan when Rae props him against the wallpaper to fish out her keys. 

She doesn’t bother with lights inside her own apartment, dragging him straight to the bedroom to lie him down. Tremors have started wracking up and down his spine and against the sheets he’s twitching and muttering,  
“ S’you, it’s really, really you…” 

Pressing her hand to his forehead seems to encourage him, his creaking voice chanting and getting louder along with the fingers of his metal hand drumming against the comforter.

“ It’s you. Oh, you’re so- you are so perfect.” His eyes snap open at the same moment Rae feels her windpipe close.   
His metal hand easily holds her neck in place, squeezing the blood into her face and air out of her lungs. It’s impossible to do anything but twist and kick at the sides of the bed; Rae feels him dragging her body over his with a jerk. 

She’s clawing at his hand with both of her own metal fingertips, but he’s stronger than anything she’s ever felt. Rae hears the pathetic hiss of her own escaping air under his palm; eyes pleading into his for mercy but finding none. 

He groans thickly at the sounds of her squeaking in his grip, pausing to spit blood and mucous over the side of the bed and fumbling over his own words,  
“ You and me, Darling… We’re gonna do great things.” 

Rae doesn’t hear anything else over the thudding of her own heart. Her hands are useless now just curling around his own.   
There’s a whining and somewhere Rae knows it’s coming from her.  
Far away and ringing like a bell in her ear- 

The world is darkening at the edges, but the stranger’s eyes bore into her own with a burning intensity.   
Somewhere there’s rushing of water in her mouth with the roar of blood-   
Rae hears no more.


	2. Spark

Rae awakens to the most peaceful morning within her memory, snuggling her sleep flushed face further into the pillow with a groan. ‘ Rubbish pickup should be any minute now. Got a good few hours before I- ’ Something in the silence breaks out gooseflesh along her arms. A yawning stillness that follows after terror.

Far away and ringing like a bell in her ear-

Twisting her head, Rae hears it again and again; feeling the firm press of warm leather at her larynx. There’s no mistaking a collar.   
The world is darkening at the edges, but the stranger’s eyes bore into her own with a burning intensity. 

Soaking in sweat, suddenly the residual warmth of sleep is too much- but she can’t kick off the blankets. Ankles chafing painfully for trying (again), even though Rae can’t see the ligature marks around them.

Somewhere there’s rushing of water in her mouth with the roar of blood- 

She’d ended up nearly strangled to death by the same transient that so desperately needed help.  
’ He’s clearly unwell. Maybe he took a nastier hit than I thought…’ Rae’s mental catalogue of prefrontal cortex injuries find themselves interrupted with a chaste kiss to her forehead. The smacking of his dry lips audible in the quiet.

“ Get off- get off of me!” Rae’s eyes snap open, rolling and white towards the fake crown moulding around the seams of the room. Looking everywhere but her captor’s fiery gaze where he’s propped himself up by the elbows over her form.  
His tangle of rosaries and junk jewelry rest on her naked breasts, her shifting had shimmied the blankets down to her navel; but he spared nothing more than a cursory glance down her soft body.

“ Finally awake my Beauty, my little treasure… Thought I got carried away there, you slept the whole day away. ”  
Rae feels the dryness of her mouth like a desert and if she opens her lips only sand will come she’s sure of it. The stranger draws back to a distance almost respectable, at least now Rae can’t smell his breath and sweat. Above her the light catches the angular planes of his face, unmarred by injury.

’ He looks good. Too good, he’s been utilizing my healing stream… But I’ve been tied to this bed the whole time.’ Rae shakes her head, attempting to rid herself of the image. This lunatic preacher crawling into bed with her, pressing himself along her unconscious body; getting stronger every minute.  
He doesn’t notice the tremors making their way through her, or maybe he doesn’t care when he gazes at her and supplies,  
“ Getting your strength back I’d wager. Those blokes did a number on me; I don’t think I would’ve made it. Knew if I looked hard enough you’d show yourself. How long did Moses wander to find Zipporah?”

’ I don’t know… Why would I know that?’ Rae’s remembers how to stay alive in a hostage situation like this, knows she need to keep him talking and happy; hopefully stable.  
“ I-uh, I don’t think I caught your name. Mine’s Rae…” Attempting to keep her voice from breaking.

“My name is Jamison and it’s my pleasure, darling…” He tells her with a flourish that Rae sees through in a hot second.

’ Bet you’ve been practicing that in the mirror. ’ Rae guessed bitterly, while Jamison is still grinning at her. His mouth curves up cruelly, like a shark, sharp and expectant. Raking his eyes over her sleep flushed skin and puffy face.  
Rae knows on some level he honestly believes this is a conversation. Reminds herself again to say something and keep him happy.  
Keep him stable.  
“ What happened to you out there Jamison, I can gather you aren’t from the city.”

Puffing up at that and squaring his broad shoulders but his eyes aren’t on her anymore; scanning the ceiling like there’s an answer written there. He continues slowly, with deliberation,  
“ Been on a pilgrimage; got to spread the word to all these suits and city wankers-” Fixing Rae with a look at the next part  
“ Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven, eh?”  
Rae watches the man who took her; choked her almost past the point of no return. Watches him shudder, shake, and rasp out finally,  
“ Can’t make fun of a bloke’s clothes that way, ‘specially not when I’ve cobbled em together with my own two-heheheh, mitts.” Sparkling with mirth one second but he’s wild and feral with the next. Grinning again with his palms up and pointed out; supplicating and non-threatening as two and a half meters of derro fanatic can be.  
“ So I told 'em what they were; selfish, spoiled little gobbshites. Can’t miss a 'mo to look down on the folks suffering to make their sick way of life possible.” Jamison is far away and entirely, painfully alone.  
Trying quickly to squash any errant pangs of sympathy, Rae finds she can no longer meet his eyes.

“ I’m sorry that happened to you, Jamison… I-I wasn’t going to turn you in or anything like that. The only design I had on you was to get you all bandaged up.” It’s true, every bit of it and Rae hopes that counts for something.  
Jamison is back at her side taking both her small metal covered hands into his own. His knuckles are bruised and scraped, but no longer split or bloodied as they were in the alley. Rae feels the familiar thrum of warmth working through her forearms, echoing into her fingers as the nanite stream engages of its own accord.

His hand is dry and calloused around her while he brings his mouth close to hers. Hissing above her cheek,  
“ It was you, sent to me that night in the cold. I’d be six feet under or packed into the landfill if you didn’t happen by me. You touched me and I felt it, fire… Then you carried me home.”  
There’s something throbbing against her dimpled thigh, slung sideways and getting bigger as Jamison sucks in a shuddering breath. His hips are twitching with each syllable, like a signature,  
“ Only took a second to get my wits, your miracle touch cleared out any distraction. I had to take you… Couldn’t risk you slipping away, I had to bring you here; for safe keeping until the next supply run comes through. Three days and three nights.” Rae weakly attempts to recoil and slide away; limbs slow and numbed from lack of energy (and active nanites) but Jamison’s grip on her hands and the ropes biting her ankles don’t allow anything of the sort.  
Pushing more insistently into her thigh Jamison is barely coherent,  
“ Sleeping next to your most holy and vulnerable body just for a night. I’m a new man… Thank you, but I need you to pray with me. Just a bit more, my Beauty, my little flame. ” With the way his body is rocking into her, cheap bed frame squeaking and rocking with them, the last thing on anyone’s mind is prayer.

Rae aims her eyes past the yellow tips of his hair, still stiffened by dirt. Her shoulders ache and tingle with weakness. She opens her mouth instead,  
’ Stability be damned. This stops now.’  
“ Jamison. Stop it- quit moving. Listen to me, my hands, they aren’t miraculous touch or…” she tries to shrug beneath him, searching for the right words. “ It’s modern medicine and science, just a recent bit of tech. Nothing to do with gods or-”

His metal hand presses cruelly into her lips, almost plugging her nose too, Jamison’s eyes above her are shining when presses a shaky kiss to the corner of her eye, catching her tears of frustration on his tongue.  
“ No more of that ignorance. Can’t tolerate it. I know you don’t understand it; our sacrifices are the same; an eye for an eye, flesh is as good as any. You got a gift too, nothing to hide where we’re going.” His fingers quake against her jaw, clutching in time with each whine and push of his bony hips.

’ I have to get out of here… This isn’t right. How did this happen?’ Rae squeezes her eyes shut when Jamison gasps against her cheek, tongue poking out and smearing spittle.  
He draws back suddenly, like he’s remembered something important enough to stop his shameless rutting against her. Rolling only inches away from the length of her restrained body, not touching her. With the heat pouring off his skin making Rae dizzier by the minute.  
’ Ugh, I can feel pre-cum through his trousers.’ The slimy feeling and the obvious (and intimidating) bulge draws away. Jamison is even untangling his flesh hand from around hers; the harsh angles and ridges of his right hand soften, finally lift with only a thin string of saliva.

“ Enough, enough… Gotta remember. Good things come to those who wait.” Rae numbly watches Jamison mutter, palming his erection harshly before working the four buttons open entirely.  
Gripping his cock with a surprisingly needy coo and fucking into the circle of his fingers. Jamison has his eyes trained on her chest now, where her nipples have hardened into peaks. The bedframe is so rickety that every pump of his hand sets the whole mattress shifting; Rae flushing scarlet at the way he’s leering at her shaking breasts.  
His hand whips faster and faster over his cock, his peg leg thrown over Rae’s thigh and slipping the blankets down. Holding back an unhappy groan when they're kicked off entirely; Rae watches Jamison raise himself up over her, pointing his cock at her stomach and upper thighs.  
“ Almost there, just gotta… Hnnn- just a minute.” He’s sweating and tense above her with his dick red and dripping almost constantly. Thick and heavy under its own newly replenished blood supply; long enough for a few inches to peek out of Jamison’s fingertips.  
Rae watches in horror when he shoots thick ropes of cum over her shuddering stomach and hips. Scooting closer to wring out the last drops onto the space between her clenched thighs.  
“ That’s it… You’ll receive my seed proper soon enough. My holy flame, oh, but not yet. Patience is a virtue. Be faithful, and trust me…”

Rae can’t even summon the energy to scowl anymore. His overwhelming warmth wrapping around her again and the thrum of her gauntlets settle her into a deep and uncomfortable sleep.


	3. Prophet's revealed

Three days, it’s been three days spent in a single room. Three days of nothing but crackers and ‘wine’ or whatever heavily watered version passed for it; spilling generously from Jamison’s canteen. The only thing he gave generously, scripture notwithstanding. 

It’s uncharacteristically cold in the small motel room; which must be why Jamison has laid his coat over Rae’s sleeping body, weighing the threadbare blanket. Why his own breath quickens beside her and why he’s shivering and shaking like a leaf or bit of paper scrap, stirring something inside of her.  
Why her hand felt compelled to creep down along the length of her own torso and seek out Jamison’s own. 

‘ Can’t do any more harm at this point, may as well use the nanites for a bit of heat too. Since they’ve already basically brought him back from the dead…’ Rae remembers the way he said it. ‘Six feet under, packed into a landfill, or worse wasn’t it? As though he’s got anything to go back to, got so little he’s got to steal any hope in hell for medical attention.’ 

The questing tips of her fingers find Jamison’s right hand, matching their metals under the blanket, with an easy, familiar warmth flowing out from Rae’s forearms. Jamison’s hand starts when the heat sinks into his own limb, almost pulls it away, whimpering. Short, airy little sounds that disappear so quickly it's almost like they didn’t happen at all. 

Turning her head lets Rae observe each peep, lets her follow their path up his long neck, bobbing his Adam’s apple. In the early light of the morning Jamison looks very nearly vulnerable with his face slackened by sleep, only occasionally twisting up with a groan.   
‘ Finally building up some heat now.’ Around her, while she’s snug under that coat; Jamison’s leg is moving, shifting his lower body and unsettling the warm, trapped air. ‘ Goddammit- ’

So Rae squeezes his hand-  
Jamison’s answering groan is loud, creaky with sleep-  
But undeniably pleasure laced. 

There’s heat in her cheeks now, crawling ruddy up her pale neck and it’s got nothing to do with the nanites.   
‘ He isn’t!’ The thought of a grown man, mewling at the contact of his fingers laced into another person’s hand; it’s almost too much to believe.   
Then he moans again, his jaw sliding open to wet the his chapped lips with the tip of his tongue-  
‘ He is…’ Rae is still watching his mouth, ignoring that leg of his now that it’s only shaking slightly.   
She almost misses his other hand entirely; sliding over his slim hips to palm the bulge in the front of his trousers. Whining and huffing with each hurried press downwards. 

Jamison’s hand moves faster, enough to pause the persistent rise and fall of his lean stomach, even through denim. By now he’s completely hard and tenting beneath the covers, roaming hand only accenting the shape of his length.   
‘ Stop it, stop looking at it.’ Rae’s gaze draws back up the length of Jami’s body, settling on his face- 

“ Oh, of course you’re awake now!” She says sharply.   
Jamison’s eyes stare at her in the dark, unblinking when he squeezes Rae’s fingers, tight enough to crack her knuckles under the thin metal of her gauntlets. 

Still locked on her when he fumbles open the four buttons holding back his cock and takes it into his fist.   
“ Ngh- N-not so tired after all, I’d wager.” Jamison whispers or tries to, hissing like he’s sharing a secret. “ Needed a bit more from you, figured I’d have to take it but oh- oh- you blessed me anyway. Thank you darling, it’s like a fire in your bones.”   
The wet sound of his hand over his cock, getting wetter with each passing minute Rae is still touching him. 

‘ It won’t take long… If I can wait, it’ll just take a minute-’ A million thoughts are racing through her mind, every single one of them synonymous with escape. ‘ But my ankles are still tied. He’ll only undo those for morning offering…’   
A long shot is still a shot, and Rae doesn’t have anything else.   
“ J-Jamison… Isn’t it time for the morning offering? I think. ” Rae locks her gaze with his, watching the amber rims around his pupils come back like an approaching tide with her words. 

Nothing moves after that, Jamison’s hand is still around his length but the noise of precum slicking his hand stops. Something plays across his face, nothing recognizable but it’s like watching a movie. Rae has a front row seat to watch him sweat. When he slides his own lanky body off the mattress, it’s hard for her to hide a smile. The sounds of his pleasure replaced by muttering,   
“ She’s right. Ain’t no time like the present… Can’t cock it up now. Not when we’re so close.” 

His metal fingers disentangle themselves from her own, their nanite heavy warmth goes with.   
‘ I-I’ve done it?’   
Jamison busies himself laying out a makeshift altar, laid out anew each morning and packed away at midnight. Laying out his canteen on a red silk square(a handkerchief in another lifetime) and opening a beaten box of Jatz biscuits.   
Digging into his trouser pocket he’s got something in his palm- but he turns away from the altar with a kiss on the green beads at his neck, the twisted metal cross, warped by heat and shining with patina.   
Jamison rolls his coat to the dip he’s left beside Rae; pulls the blankets off slowly, careful to not surprise her. She gasps anyway when he exposes her and takes several seconds too long when he reaches for her ankles. Dancing his fingertips along the top of Rae’s foot and ankle before finally settling on the knots chafing them.  
Rae eyes the ceiling, reaches her arm out to pull Jamison’s coat over her breasts and stomach. Steadying her breath is easier said than done, but she does it; rolling life into her stiffened legs.   
‘ Almost as bad as numbness, but he’s not damaged my circulation. ‘ 

“ There we go-! Have this too, I’m a bit embarrassed I don’t have more. Never leave enough room in my effects for food I’m afraid.” Jamison pushes some kind of cake into her hand; wrapped rather expertly with tinfoil that when peeled back revealed a dense, sticky, honey covered treat. “ But we’ll have our fill when they arrive, always lousy with the bloody things…” 

Shoving it in her mouth while she slides on Jamison’s coat with his help, guided to stand with his muscular arm around her shoulders-   
‘ Eager to cover me up eh? Now that you’re trying to play at that. ’ The thought comes while she chews, interrupted by the burst of spices on her tongue. ‘ This is delicious. Not just because it’s the first food I’ve had properly in days.’ 

One step after the other until they’re both standing at the dresser and Jamison’s collection of items. His hand atop her shoulder starts press, bending her knees into the wooden floor when she kneels.   
“ Now let’s see if you won’t follow along this time. Told you English is fine, right as rain even-”   
Jamison starts to speak, swaying slightly between his peg and his foot;

“Domine lesu Christe, in unione illius divinae intentionis, quia in terris per sanctissimum Cor tuum laudes Deo persolvisti et nunc in Eucharistiae Sacremento-”

‘ It’s always the same, you’ve gotten me down here so you can chatter at me about psalms or something to do with stewardship of the earth. Touching yourself when you say it in latin-’ 

“ Ubique terrarum persolvis usque ad consummationem saeculi, ego per hanc diem integram, ad imitationem sanctissimi Cordis beatae Mariae semper Virginis immaculatae,” 

Skin crawling with horror that’s almost become routine (tells herself that), Rae says nothing just stares at him. Pretends to ignore the way his cock throbs through his pants beside her cheek; lets Jamison lock eyes with her like always.

“ Tibi libentissime offero omnes meos intentiones et cogitationes, omnes meos affectus et desideria, omnia mea opera et verba. Amen.” 

He waits for any squeak of sound, but Rae’s even taken care to slow her breathing and remains resolutely silent. Kneading harshly into her shoulder while he palms his erection with his flesh hand, fingertips playing at the buttons before popping the first, and the next. 

“ No dice then? Fine. Have it your way, if you won’t give glory to Heaven then you’ll please me like a sinner-” He moves his metal hand to brace three fingers between Rae’s teeth, daring her to bite down; to break her teeth or cut her tongue (make it all easier in the end no doubt). 

“ N-no!” Rolling thick out of Rae’s mouth with spittle and alarm. She’s twisting a bit until Jamison brings the cap of his canteen to tap against her nose.

“ Open up love, or this’ll go into your nose, gotta give you the body, blood, soul, and d-divinity.” Another button down and Jamison’s blonde thatch of pubic hair is visible, the thick base of his cock where it’s pressed sideways and down. 

‘ Nearly into his pant leg, for fucks sake. Just take a deep breath, wait till he gets off…’ 

Rae blinks slowly, tilting her head upwards and opening her mouth, extending her tongue for the first splash of watered wine. Jamison let’s out a throaty moan watching her swallow, refills her mouth again to the brim and past it. Sticky red rivulets flowing between her breasts and into her bellybutton.   
Flowing over her pubic mound and where her soft thighs press together, splitting her in half with a wet, red line.   
‘ Just like me when he finally snaps and fucks me like he wants to. Only some semantics holding him back-’ A coughing fit stops Rae’s thought in its track; gasping and spitting around his retreating metal fingers, in an effort to not aspirate any more wine-

Apparently all in vain because Jamison’s got his cock out.  
He lines himself up with Rae’s stained mouth, and shoves forward. Stretching her lips tightly around the middle of his erection. She can’t help groaning at the way the head of his cock cuts off her air unless she flattens her tongue. 

Throbbing when she does, Jamison strokes his sticky fingers over the soft skin beneath her eye. All she can think is, ‘ Not doing it for you… Can barely breathe and every time I make more room you shove more in-’   
Jamison pops the head of his cock past her molars, into the tight vice of her throat. 

“ Oh that’s the way. So good for me, so, so good… Just a bit more. I’ve got to cum, so I’ve got to use you. I’m sorry, shhhhh; you look so damn beautiful down there Rae.” He’s complimenting her nearly fast as his short, desperate pushes. 

Staring into her eyes; rapt on the way she looks choking on his length. 

Acid from the wine and her gag reflex burning at the back of Rae’s throat makes her swallow, rapidly trying to push down panic and bile. It’s tight enough that Jamison sounds like he’s in pain; his shaking hand holds her chin delicately, tipping her head back for more access. 

“ Shhhhh, it’s okay Darling. Almost done, can’t waste it on the floor… Oh fuck, f-fuck-” Jamison shivers, rolling his hips sharply, shoving Rae’s nose into his pubes and closing his eyes. 

‘ Now?’ Rae can’t move fast enough, her legs are stiff from being in this position. She ignores every instinct to bite down and lurch to the door. ‘ Just a bit longer, he’ll crash soon. Get sloppy.’ 

She doesn’t taste his cum, his dick was to far down her esophagus for that. The feeling of throbbing as he shot was the only surefire way to tell it was almost over-

Jamison pulls his cock out of her mouth with an obscene ‘pop’ and wastes no time crouching beside her, already off balance as he pulls Rae into a deep kiss.   
It’s enough, Rae has a chance; no matter how miniscule-

‘ Thumb over the knuckles, not tucked between them or it’ll break.’ She tucks her right arm in close (the way she was trained) aiming squarely at the one of Jamison’s sleep purpled, closed eyes. 

She misses, hits his sharp cheekbone instead but he’s going down with a curse and flailing to grab Rae too-  
Rae ducks away from his hand, doesn’t watch to see his ass hit the floor. She’s already giving him a wide berth and running for the door, ‘ Please be unlocked!’ 

‘ Maybe Jamison is right, maybe I am blessed ’ Rae thinks giddily as the handle turns in her own metal covered hand.  
Sunlight is saturating the landscape, and her eyes being so weak from being hidden away (not locked apparently, how arrogant is he?); forces Rae to keep to the shadows, along the wooden walkway under hole filled eaves. 

Doors pass by, all peeling and dry-rot ridden; she’s almost made it to the corner of the building. The parking lot on her other side is drenched in sunlight and there’s no above the cracked and pitted asphalt that ran endlessly parallel to the motel.   
‘ Got to find someone, something,-’ Pulling the jacket tighter around her shoulders, trying to keep it’s the extra length from tangling in her clumsy footfalls. Rucking up the collar only releases the scent of Jamison’s sweat straight up her nose, along with something like smoke; dark and overpowering.   
‘ Frankincense? Some kind of incense or some oil. Surprising it’s not just B.O.’   
She doesn’t see the woman in front of her fast enough to stop-  
So Rae doesn’t and goes crashing into her at full speed. Somehow she doesn’t fall over and knock her dark haired head, doesn’t even seem to be angry at a stranger who looks like bad news who just tried to run her over.

She absorbs the force of Rae’s impact, taking her in close and steady with surprisingly strong arms and breathing out,   
“ Woah there! Where’s the fire? Just stop a minute and quit thrashing-” 

“ I- we can’t. We can’t stay here, we can’t be here. I need- we need to leave right now, please!” Staring at the person in front of her Rae sees that she’s young as she is, tan and smiling widely with crooked teeth.   
She brings a baggy, cotton covered arm over Rae’s shoulder conspiratorially, dangling over the back of her neck. Something pricks at the back of Rae’s neck like a bit of hair got caught, or a pinch. 

“ Bloody biting flies, shoo! Sorry, what’s that then? I know no one’s supposed to be here but us mice, but it’s just squatters out this a-ways.” She steers Rae off the wooden walkway. Around the corner and towards the back of the building with bare dirt slapping under her feet, towards another door-

‘ Away from the road. ’ Something isn’t sitting right, but Rae can’t shake the girl’s grip around her. The wine has gone to her head, the sudden rush of escape and the hot wind making it hard to breathe at all. 

“ Please… He’s gonna find us. We need to leave before he sees-” Rae whispers dazedly, too quiet to be serious.   
They pass a car, an old hatchback of some kind with wooden panels on the side. Poorly parked on the dirt and baking in the sun with heat visibly rising from the flatly painted hood. 

“ Don’t mind the battle wagon, I’m out of petrol as is and it’s a loaner from my Boss. Gotta waits until my mate drags his carcass out of bed, he’s set to meet me later. Ah, here we are!” She throws open another shoddy door(without a number), so rudely it bounces back off the wall; raining paint-chips onto the floor. “ Home sweet home, or home away from home I guess. I always say home is where you hang your boots,” The dark haired girl gestures to the wall and sure enough, hooked on a nail are a pair of sun faded boots. 

Rae looks down and realizes the stranger is barefoot like she is. She tries to steady her breathing, so something coherent will come out when she opens her swollen lips. The girl deposits her on the couch, there’s no windows in this room; it isn’t properly a room at all, clearly used to be some sort of break area or storage room. An ancient and long overfilled ashtray still sits in the middle of the dust covered coffee table.

‘ No one’s been here long at all. ’ Rae knows that much, but the girl is busy pouring clear water into a canning jar and pressing it into her hands.   
So she drinks long and deep, banishing the soreness in her throat and the sour taste of fear and adrenaline. 

“ That’s the way, now that we’re settled. I’m Fly, just Fly.” With the other hand Rae is shaking Fly’s hand, trying to not go cross-eyed at the way she looks through thick glass and the water she’s gulping down.   
The only answering sound is Rae drinking; but the if the delay in introductions bothers Fly, she doesn’t say. 

Just grins and taps her long gloved fingers along the rims of her goggles. Rae can’t see Fly’s eyes at all, just her own face broken what seems like a thousand times and reflected back at her. Rae watches herself drain the jar and set it down.But she knows the feeling of someone staring holes into her rather intimately after three days. Rae knows she’s looking at another junker measuring her up, it’s only natural she’d be away from civilization for whatever purpose Jamison intended-  
‘ I have to warn her, we have to leave,’ Rae speaks slowly, trying to impart the gravity of their situation.  
“ Fly, my name’s Rae; i-it really is nice to meet you but, we have to go right now. There’s someone else here, someone who’ll take us both-” She doesn’t know that for sure, but it wasn’t the time to argue about fibbing. 

Fly cuts her off, pats her wild, sweaty hair like Rae is the silliest thing she’s seen all day.   
“ No one knows I’m here Rae. I’m like a shadow, or some other slip of a thing. Skulking is my speciality, I’m so slippery that no bloke can catch me. Unless I want him too, ha!” 

Rae can’t help but smile, her head hasn’t improved but something about Fly is relaxing her guard.   
“ You’re… very different than the other junkers. A-are there many like you out here?” Rae tries to find out something; this girl has no shortage of commentary but none of it belied anything about her.  
“ There’s none like me, that’s why I get to go out on a solo number. I’m due to preform the next stop over, pull in the crowds and whatnot.” Fly puffs out her chest and squares her shoulders, standing up to her full height and stretching; breaking Rae’s view of the door.   
“ Are you hungry Rae? I’ve got just the thing; give me a mo’- ” Fly digs into the pockets of her red jumper, fishing out a square of something and pressing it into Rae’s hand. 

A bit of cake, wrapped in foil, dense and spongy, and soaked through with honey. 

“ Don’t be shy. I’ve got plenty. Got a man back home who makes them special for me,” Fly says it with a wink, she’s pacing now. Giddy with nervous energy like a deer and silent as one too, standing on the bare pads of her toes.   
Rae can’t move, something is badly wrong. There’s a heaviness present in her limbs that wasn’t there before. She remembers the prick on her neck, the way it was over to quick and not like an insect at all-   
“ You getting tired over there? I’ll save it for you- can hear your tummy growling from here. That great stumbling lummox really didn’t leave any room for food…” Fly tilts her head this way and that, cracking her neck and pulling up the hood on her jumper.   
There’s a commotion outside that makes Rae’s heart sink. She hears the sound of stomping off the wooden walkway, silent now on the packed dirt.  
“ He really put his, heheh, foot in it; starving a sweet little thing like yourself. It’ll come back to bite him in that bony arse of his, hell hath no fury like a woman starved- Wait, that’s not it.” Fly inhales deeply and starts again, “ All I’m saying is he clammed you up something awful, can’t hardly blame you for running!”

The door behind her slams open again, just as rudely as before, but this time after the rain of paint chips it stays braced against the wall- 

Rae hears the sound of a hinge hitting the floor; hears the way Fly laughs high and loud at it- 

“ Look what you’ve done now! Some hideout this is now that you’ve broken the door off like a fucking child… You’re welcome by the way, I nabbed her and stuck her before anything else.” 

“ Shut it Fly, I’m not in the fucking mood-” Jamison’s voice is raspy with exertion when he barks, “ Hand her over. There’s petrol in my room, the honeymoon suite; go fill up the wagon and wait for my signal. There’s a lesson to be learned here…” 

“ Sure thing Boss-man. Gotta get something for that cheek though, can’t be looking like a wreck when we pull into the next bushie-burg. You need all the help you can get these days-” 

“ Fly, get lost. Or get found, by the rubbish patrol for all I care! Just give me a private moment with Rae here.”   
Rae watches Fly step aside lightly, shifting her weight easily and retreating to the left corner of the room, gaze shifting between the door and Jamison’s pained hobble towards her. 

“ Humility, and obedience are rewarded.” Behind him Fly slips out the open door silent as a ghost with nary another word.   
‘ That’s that then. He’s going to kill me for sure. I ran and he’ll lose control and beat me senseless.'   
“ While pride and selfishness must be punished. You’re willful, what’s the word, capricious. That’s how the divine always are; delicate flighty little things and I’ve got to attune you to our world now.” Jamison has some sort of tank with a nozzle in his flesh hand, clicking the red button at it’s side rapidly.   
He’s pulling Rae off of the couch, easily taking her weight when she sags into his sweat soaked chest.   
“ It’s got to be a clean break you understand? Nothing from your old life, no reminders of wickedness and all their idolatry.” Jamison strips her of his coat easily with; sliding the roomy shoulders off Rae’s form, leaving her naked with sunlight shining through the empty doorway and sliding up her legs.   
Running his hand along the length of her neck and up into her hair, combing it out of the way of her earrings- 

‘ No, no, no, please. They’re all I have from her; it's not just jewelry or something shiny. ’ Rae’s mind is screaming but her mouth is incapable of doing anything but gape like a fish. Her empty apartment flashes through her mind; most of her possessions had already been sold off.  
‘ I’m so sorry mom.’ Jamison removes the right earring, doesn’t yank it out of her ear like Rae expected; but holds it between his teeth when his hand disappears behind his own earlobe and removes one of his own earrings. 

“ I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, Darling. We’ll be part of a matched set; inseparable. Binding your most Holy form to my own.” He fastens his own earring onto Rae’s right ear; breathing out in delight when the post slides into place.   
Rae watches numbly while he takes her own earring in kind. 

“ Now on the subject of your transgressions, I can’t have you running again. I’ve got to make you understand-” Jamison tries to force her to her knees, in front of him again; but even with the drugs Rae won’t bow her head. 

His hand catches her across the cheek, the same spot she punched him; but Jamison is all stinging open palm. More noise than pain, something that clears away the fog in Rae’s mind for a second. She kneels with her face burning, feeling the way Jamison’s metal hand smooths over the back of her neck.   
“ You need to learn the importance of submission, I forgive you of course. But pain is the language of Heaven and it’s creatures.” In his hand the butane torch roars to life, he’s mouthing something at Rae. She watches his chapped lips move through the wildness of her hair. 

His metal hand has something pinched between two of it’s fingers. A ring that’s been on his flesh hand until now; he moves it in front of the blue flame but not directly into it, rotating it slowly while it turns a dull red, eventually glowing orange. 

Rae couldn’t flinch if she wanted too; just stays on the floor while he keeps heating the ring. If she listens closely it sounds like he’s tunelessly humming some hymn (that she can’t hear over the torch, anyway).   
The press of heated metal on the base of her neck, smelling her skin burning, the sickening pop and sizzle makes Rae’s vision swim. She knows she’s pitching forward when the ring is pulled away, between Jamison’s foot and prosthetic leg and trying to crawl miserably towards the doorway. 

“ Oh, no you don’t little one-” Jamison’s voice is sharp with arousal; above Rae he takes another step towards her feet. Pushing her ankles together with the tip of his boot and straightening her legs. 

Laying on the floor Rae can’t see what he’s going for, hopes he’ll just tie her up again.  
(She’s never been that lucky.) 

The torch roars to life again, but this time Jamison is sitting on the small of her back. Effectively pinning Rae’s rounded hips onto the worn floor while he rolls his own into her soft ass. 

One of his legs is stretched out to push her calves flat against the wood as well. Preventing Rae from shying away and spreading her out like an offering.   
Rae’s eyes roll to the empty doorway, with her glasses askew and crooked not helping the nausea and shock coursing through her system.   
‘ Haven’t eaten enough to throw anything up anyways…’ 

The torch is laid against her hip, and it’s tank is blessedly cool.   
It isn’t the ring that touches the backs of her knees, makes her toenails scrabble and splinter at the burn. Past the point of pain and into a heavy throbbing of deep tissue damage. 

‘ It’s that rosary around his neck, that cross-’ Rae opens her mouth but all that comes out is a croak, too stunned and hurt to wail. 

With Jamison still sitting on her spine, rolling and humping against the rise of her buttocks, he’s leaned forward to admire his handiwork in a surprising show of flexibility. Pressing open mouthed kisses along the backs of her thighs and caressing her calves with surprising gentleness.   
“ There you go, no more wandering off all on your own accord. No telling what kind of filth will try to snatch you away,”   
Darkness dances at the corners of Rae’s vision. The smell of her own flesh burning, filling the room and stirred by the wind makes her mouth water despite the knowledge of what it is. 

“ I can’t lose you. This pilgrimage was nearly the end of me; I’m so close, it’s all falling into my hands now. Just bear with me a bit longer Rae, we’ll be home soon enough.” Jamison is still rubbing his pelvis against her own. Short, rhythmless little affairs like he doesn’t realize he’s still doing it.   
“ You’re the biggest bloody miracle I’ve stumbled on to date. Only got one more sermon on the way back to the Homestead; you’ll be the lesson, the proof it’s all worth it.” Jamison stands up over her, whistles low under his breath; but piercing as a magpie.

Rae watches Fly’s naked feet reappear in the doorway, fast enough to know she was lurking outside the door. 

“ Sakes alive! Smells like long pig in here, be careful Boss. That sort of shite travels far on the wind, ready to hit the road? We’re a bit behind already since you had to have your beauty rest-” Fly’s cheerfulness isn’t impacted by the sight of Rae spread out on the floor and blistering.   
She steps around her with a wink and grabs her boots off the nail in the wall. 

“ I trust you’ll carry your lady love… I’ll make sure we didn’t miss anything good in the other rooms. The wagon’s open and the back is all set up for Rae; got some food for her too, can’t have her expiring before we get back to The Homestead.” 

Rae feels Jamison gather her up, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of taters and her head rushes with even more blood. With each uneven step it’s harder to make out the color of the earth she’s staring at.   
The creak of a car door doesn’t register, neither does Jamison’s remarking  
“My lady, your chariot awaits… As it were. Had to be inconspicuous for our pickup.”   
Lifting her head Rae sees the old hatchback up close, she feels like crying-   
Maybe she is when Jamison loads her into the large back seats, muttering to himself about the blessings of dark upholstery hiding bloodstains.


	4. I fall asleep(counting my blessings)

“ The way this all is supposed to happen. The way it’s got to be is like this; the three of us arrive like the wise men did, right?” 

Sun bathes every part of Jamison’s body; sweat dripping from his brow, forming a clean, clear river beneath his body, he can hear reeds shaking and Fly’s voice is like birds calling back and forth. 

He turns away from the window, away from the sun and noise in favor of their bedroom; Rae is sitting with her legs tucked beneath her. Her thin cotton nightgown is pulled up with the hem tickling her rounded thighs when her mouth forms around something he’s dreamed of his wife saying, “ Come here, lover ” or some similar noise. There’s the roar of water, or rocks hitting the undercarriage and he can’t properly hear her on that side with his bad ear-   
Jamison’s whole body is cocooned in blankets; a basket bearing him through the rocking flow beneath, undertow or runningboard it wasn’t clear now. \

But he knows the way she looks at him and kisses the air where he wants to be. In a second he is there, pressed flush against her warm and pliant front; palming her breasts and pulling her soft nipples with his long fingers until her mouth is open. He’s kissing her for all he’s worth and his other hand pulls at the garment standing in his way, cotton easily shredding like paper beneath him and she’s lying there like a gift sent in the post.   
“ We’ll be expected all right, it won’t be any trouble to find a hot and cot here. Could say our reputation precedes us.” 

“ Famous or infamous? ”   
Rae’s lilting tones contrast with the dry cackle that makes its way out of Fly, 

“ Both, but mostly that first one. Jami’s really got a way with folks you see? Skulked around here as an ankle biter; we’re like real birds of a feather back in those days, Boss and me. Gave them all a real show or not... I guess it all depends on where they were standing…” 

He turns away from the window again, no, away from Rae. He’s slick with sweat from his sparse hair roots to his five remaining toes. Pressed too hard against sun heated glass, like Rae is holding him against her; inside of her somehow. Jamison’s been set alight from within and glowing. 

“ So you both put on a show doing what exactly? Working when you were kids; didn’t anyone help you- the both of you?” 

“ We did get help Rae; we were hired for the merchants pitching snake oil, we worked to move other crowds, Hell’s bells we even lifted the odd miracle cure and exposed a phony back alley sawbones or two. Got scooped up by the local color myself afterwards and Jamison wandered out into the red hills for… Gods- er, fuck for I don’t know how many years. Boss-man’s gotta be almost twenty seven, no, twenty six?” 

He burns steadily as a match, twitching and panting now laid out flat on his back. Unable to move backwards and away from suffocating heat or fall into Rae the way he wants to; Jamison twists like a croc in the mud or something that's just emerged from its den. There’s friction across the front of his trousers, but his hands have nothing to do with it. Not when his arms are wrapped up in several different directions, like one of those old jackets they used to stuff prophets and visionaries like him into, back in the times before-

“ JESUS WEPT- Gotta get somebody out here to patch that up; looks like we could’ve lost the bumper.” Fly’s blasphemous screaming about his territory’s infrastructure is like an alarm preceding a blast. 

The front left tire dips into a pit so deep Jamison’s head cracks against the scratchy carpet in the back of the wagon. Cracking one eye open against the wash of daylight sends a bloom of pain, hot and quick through his head.   
“So tell me more about yourself Rae? Where ya from, dolly?” Fly blunders on, winding up her act like a tinny air raid siren. “ I’ll eat my hat if you’re from Oz at all…”

Jamison groans thickly into the blankets stuck to his face with drool; struggles weak as a babe. Still managing to roll out of the sunlight and away from the post market ‘sunroof’ in favor of sanctuary provided by the high velour sides of Rae’s chair. Straightening his spine and aligning his body with hers through the seat, he strains to listen over the cacophony of noise. 

“ Guess I stick out a bit; either way your hat’s safe for now. I’m from the States; originally Eastern Seaboard but I’ve been shuffled and reshuffled. Bureaucracy has seen me stationed almost everywhere; and I ended up stowed away down here ever since-ah!” Rae’s voice dips at the same time another tire does, this time at the rear of the car. 

It’s enough to cramp Jami’s jaw. Enough to crack his own knuckles in the effort to keep quiet and not start chewing out Fly and her apparent need to test the suspension at all stages of the journey. But she’s efficient when there’s an opening; faithful as a hound when she presses Rae,  
“ Since you got the fancy fingers and all I’d suppose, looks like some kind of upgrade; but it isn’t a prosthetic. You’re under there all right.” Fly looks sideways at Rae and catches Jamison glaring back. Her dark eyes are rich, like loam after a good rain but they’re hidden away behind her goggles; the only thing he sees is every angle of Rae’s face a hundred hundred times. Jamison is stricken at the way she looks so fiercely into her own reflection, like she’s seeing spirits or devils walking before her. 

In that moment Jamison recognizes her soul before Rae’s full lips open and he hears angels, “ It was an accident; no one meant for it to happen. They just… Forgot about me I guess. ”

It’s like he’s swallowed a road flare, something that burns it’s way through the pit of his stomach. He’s sightless again when the hills around them drop to let a sunbeam shine through the back window; finding his face, shoulders and chest like an old fashioned spotlight. 

“ Damn shame to forget about a miracle; that’s special bit about them, they happen and it don’t matter a lick what anyone else thinks.” Fly finally puts her eyes back on the road, says, “ We count our blessings out in these parts. You’ll be the talk of the town; already have been since Jamison dreamed about you and told us you’d come.” 

He’s pressed his back to car door; leeching away heat in the fastest way he can imagine to slow his racing heart. Jamison closes his eyes to the harsh white light, let’s Rae’s reply carry him away to the night they met. 

“ That’s what he told you? I’d just come of my own accord; wander into the wilderness like some storybook fantasy?!” Her voice rises even though the car is stopped and silent, “ Did he tell you he stole me? Strangled me even though I helped him and then kidnapped me away to I don’t even know where because I’m not e-even from here!” 

They’re stopped in the middle of nowhere, but Rae is still going at the speed of light and Jamison falls with her-  
“ Here in the Outback it’s all the same thing. And give our Fearless Leader some credit; he brought you here because you helped him…” Fly kicks open the door with an exaggerated groan and lurches out on already bent legs. “ I parked us on the outskirts so we’ve got some privacy while we rehearse. Gotta get you a proper costume befitting someone as yourself; like a gift, eh?”

The edges of the town rise over the long, pitted hood of the wood paneled wagon. An even stranger skyline than Jamison’s imagined; because, if he’s honest, he avoids places where his genius wasn’t immediately recognized in the past.   
Rae doesn’t say anything, silent and stewing with intent and for a moment it’s like something is forming between himself and her, sandwiched within layers of metal and plastic. Not exactly a pact or unspoken agreement; but the start of an understanding when she says “ So the truth doesn’t matter; it’s that I’m here now, like he knew. That’s the proper takeaway here?” 

“ We’ll make a proper Junker out of you in no time! I like you, you’re smart as he said you would be. It’s undeniable he has a gift, he’s undeniable-” Fly snorts and spits on the dirt in front of her, “ You’d be the one who knows the best by now Rae. Do you think it’s all just a coincidence you found him? What’s the proper takeaway from all that business?” Fly doesn’t look into the car, she doesn’t have to. 

Jamison hears Rae admit it, the crack in her voice when she admits honestly, “I can’t- I don’t know how to quantify that one yet…”   
He opens his eyes and reaches around her seatbelt to touch her the way he did in his dreams, palming across the silken skin of her arm and eventually her middle. Rigid and straight as the chair, Rae barely breathes under his hand.

“ It’s because I know you, I’ve always known and now that I’ve found you, ” Jamison has to take a breath to steady himself, feels the tingling sort of itch under his skin that comes from speaking truthfully. “ This whole place is gonna change, Rae, you know what they said about Rome? All of that wasn’t built in a day.”

Rae doesn’t miss a moment to snap back at him; this time though, her voice is steady and sure with authority like his, “ If you’d stuck around to hear the rest of that one, they would have also told you that it burned in one…” 

Jamison doesn’t say anything, for once, just basks like a lizard when Fly opens the side door in front of him.   
“ All right, kids- er, sorry Boss. Titles aside it’s close to show-time… Needing the back now for a wardrobe change for us leading ladies. You understand of course?” He waves Fly’s comments away because the plan’s already gone swimmingly. 

Jamison’s already scooting towards the door for some much needed fresh air, excusing himself so she can do her fucking job and then tell him everything- “ I got a sermon to plan anyways, and no one can get any bloody thinking done at all with you here anyways.” Jamison stands in the wind, looks back one last time at Rae still sitting shotgun. He’s not surprised that she’s watching him when he bends down to whisper at his conspirator, “ If you don’t keep a close watch on her- if there’s even one hair out of place when I get back; Fly, I swear not even those cans of Mako’s will be able to put you back right.” 

Fly smiles warmly, on the clock like the flip of a switch. Past Jamison, past Rae and maybe all the way back to Mako at the Homestead when she talks loud enough for Rae to hear. 

“ Of course she’ll be just as beautiful as the day you met. ”


	5. Showtime

Getting dressed is the easy part. Or rather it would be, without the slow still simmering pain of Rae’s burns; behind her knees and along the nape of her neck, tight as though the skin’s been replaced with plastic wrap. Like she’s a bit of flesh they’re trying so desperately to keep fresh and ready to eat-

‘ Stop it. They’re not going to eat you and besides all those rumors about cannibalism out here they’re just that, rumors. Just urban legends to scare the new transfers. ’ Even as she chases away the panic, it’s hard to notice the way Fly is looking at her with some amount of hunger, expecting something from her almost a bit like Jamison, unease giving way to resentment. ‘ Clearly there’s some plan I’m not in on, some great ‘a-ha’ moment it’ll be…’

She almost doesn’t hear Fly’s query at all. Rae’s arms get heavier and heavier with each new bit of cloth draped over it; she can’t feel any of the textures, of which she’s being reassured there are many.  
“ Anything you’ve ever dreamed of wearing? Everyone who can hem or sew a decent button donated something to the cause; it’s like touching the whole fucking North.” Fly has the ends of her fingers sunk into a something blue, washcloth light and swaying in the breeze. “ This is the ticket, not too much but you’ll be absolutely gorgeous. It’ll set off that hair in the sunset too.”

Rae feels everything off loaded onto the dirt, just as fast as Fly was to gut the trunk. Her cheeks and neck burn with the compliments, but nothing about this woman is friendly anymore.

When she reaches out to touch Rae’s windswept curls, her tapered fingers are slow and flat. Supplicant and visible like she’s approaching a wounded mule. Rae barely feels it, stares into Fly’s goggles when she says something about, “ spun fine as thread but bronze. Like one of those old statues.”

Rae stares past all this; into the space between things says nothing at first, wondering if Fly would find some sweet nothing to say to any poor soul standing in front her. ‘ It’s not important, I’ve got to figure out what this is about. ’ She takes a deep breath of the warm, strangely fragrant air, asks “ So what are we doing here? Jamison’s off coming up with the sermon and we’re playing dress up to do what exactly? ”

“ We gotta show them your blessing, they’ve all been waiting patient and Rae, you’re just what they all need. So of course you and myself will put together a little demonstration. ” Fly helps her shrug off Jamison’s coat, doesn’t throw it down like nearly everything else when she gives Rae the blue dress. Just lays it in the trunk alongside a few brown burlap sacks and boxes.

“ So I’ll be treating you? You don’t look hurt… ” Rae tries to notice anything off about her posture; something to belie an old injury, there’s no part of her that’s visible Rae can really see a scar. 

“ Can’t expect me to give away everything can you? It’s gonna be like a right of passage, for both of us in a way. I owe him one, so this will set the two of us straight. You’re doing me a favor, Rae. And as a bonus you’ll see just how right Jamison is.” Fly grins and starts to shuck off her red jumper and black jeans, almost as if to prove Rae correct and unsettling her further when it confirms that she isn’t injured anywhere along the length of her body. Throwing her things into the trunk in a tangle, hard and away from her with a noise like it’s a pile of garbage before taking her time searching for something in the mass of clothing for herself.

Wound and neck alike burning with the sudden sun exposure and this naked near stranger, Rae puts her own garment on without so much as a look at it; but she’s pleasantly surprised when it’s comfortable and cool against her. Immediately more at ease, Rae sees how lovely it really is; once her glasses are on. With a high, gathered neck that covers her mark but doesn’t seem to chafe; it’s long and loose everywhere else. Like nothing she’s ever worn before, though clearly well constructed and one of a kind. ‘ I was never the type for gowns or handmade dresses. But I guess there’s a first time for everything… ’  
It’s a blessing in the remarkable heat, the lay of the land around the wagon is warped from illusions of air rising off the crumpled, dented metal dotting the landscape. Some of it is easy to see at a distance; the squat, beetle bodies of old tanks, the massive sprawling ribcage of a gutted and blown out cargo plane. ‘Not the sort of thing you use on a civilian population. It must have been gearing up to a slaughter before the Omnium went.’ Rae thinks about blood under her feet, soaked into the soil along with radiation while she watches Jamison’s form pace some distance away on a different dirty, bare hump of dusty earth. ‘ Clearly man-made, a mound of fill dirt from the little road they’ve built. They’ve made progress out here; more than anyone ever talks about on the news. ’

“ Well? What do you think of it? I know it’s probably not what you’re used to. But you’ll still give it a go, right? ” Fly’s found something that looks like a floral flour sack and put it on. Two lines of knots, twisted into palm sized roses joining it at the sides, it leaves her brown, fuzzy knees and calves uncovered. Rae notices what appear to be like several small, irregular scars dotting her lower shins.  
“ It’s good. Are those animal bites? ” She can’t not ask, there’s at least a dozen of them, and the longer she looks its obvious half are warped, darkened, and puckered from the passage of years.

“ I’m always getting into trouble, crawled into everything at least once and I been chewed up more than times than I got fingers. There’s critters out this ways, out a ways of proper burgs and villages. They’re mean; but most of em give up after a swift kick. Not that you have to worry about that at the Homestead.”Fly talks over her shoulder and piles everything back into the trunk, then turning on her heel and peering up and down at the way the sun was almost directly overhead. “ We gotta drive into town now to keep our schedule, now that we’re all dolled up. ” Fly gives her a jaunty thumbs up and slams the trunk closed.

Another stiff wind plasters the fabric against Rae’s front, outlining everything for several uninterrupted seconds; even her complaining groan at it swallowed by the gust. Something rolls out of the trunk to stop at the barrier of Rae’s feet-  
‘ A bit of paper? ’ The scabbed, stiffened flesh at the back of her knees screaming in protest at the movement, but Rae’s swift to stoop and pick it up and keep it in her palm.

Ahead Fly holds her hat with one hand and tucks in low to the car, smearing her shift with road dirt before she’s even opened the driver’s side door. There’s another howling from the sky, stirring up dirt and whipping it against woman, car, and rocks alike. Never before in her life has Rae been so sure of a storm on the way; the air crackled with something alarming, sinister even-  
‘ Feels like the storm from Hell is coming.’ The irony isn’t lost on her. Rae moves to walk back to the passenger seat, almost trips when she sees what must be a trick of the light through the side window. ‘ That bag didn’t just move did it? ’ So she walks as fast as she can, even if it pulls her barely healed skin.

When she opens the door the wind almost tears the door out of her grip entirely, but the paper is clenched tight and flat between her fingers. Closing the door and rattling the windows inside with the motion makes Rae flush and nearly apologize aloud, but she forms the gaping of her mouth into saying the first thing that comes to mind-

“ There’s a storm on the way, feels like a big one. ” Rae says, but talking at the passenger window. She’s still eyeing Jamison walking over the ridge like some sort of rangy specter, almost part of the land itself. So she aligns her forearm with the rise and fall of the terrain, opens her palm when she knows Fly can’t see without shifting.

“ Not yanking me about? That’s what Boss said would happen when we got you in hand. Told me Hell would be at our heels but we’ve got to keep on.” She removes her hat and throws it in the back, “ To me it feels the same as it’s ever been here; windy as hell. But you and him say it’s gonna piss on us, is it?” Fly attempts to turn the engine over with no luck, so she waits a second, finishes like nothing is amiss. “ He’s good with the weather too, better than a beast at sounding off before a bad run of it. Is it the same with you because you’ve been blessed-or do you think it’s because of the sacrifices you’ve made? ”

“ Not everything is a sign, you know. Not everything is meaningful, sometimes there’s no reason- ” Rae says sharply, grimacing when Jamison turns towards the town himself, interrupts his circuit she’s been observing while Fly turns the key again. Her eyes flicker down to the list in her hand, ‘ most of it is sensible, but why any of this is written down? ’

\--------------------------------------------------------------  
FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER, THE YEAR OF 2080.  
Main catch: Burnt 1 km TRUE NW of The ROW  
BROWN SACKS-  
17 rats, all dead  
4 main’s frogs, all dead  
10 cane toads, all dead partially eaten  
SNARES/WIRES-  
1 feral cat pregnant w/ litter, all dead  
3 foxes, 2 dead 1 maimed (burnt but alive) now skinned & ate  
PITS AND TIGER TRAPS  
1 wild dog maimed (sm. bitch, legs broken) now skinned & salted  
11 rats, all dead  
1 lizard dead (med. type unclear, burnt)  
2 brown snakes dead (type unclear, heads partially eaten poisoners?)  
1 gwardar live ( lg. healthy mouthful of poisoners) ***DO NOT KILL***  
\--------------------------------------------------------------

‘ What the is all this? ’ It’s not clear whether this is some morbid diary or inventory list but it’s the only thing Rae’s seen written in about a week, other than Jamison’s prayer notes filling the margins of his bible. ‘ It’s not his handwriting… but it’s important, otherwise why have it in the car? Dated for two days ago, I think.’ 

Fly’s voice is even and quiet when she says, “ Guess I’ll be the one to tell you, but signs are all we have out here. It’s all too much to be nothing, you feel it too. You said you did just then, before you got proud.”

Rae says nothing in reply but rolls the paper into a tight little ball between her nervous and shining fingers, watches Jamison get smaller and smaller over the sloping hillock. ‘ Something’s going to happen alright; I’m going to be trotted out to heal in front of the whole town, that’s it. At least it’s a junker I know and not some stranger. ’

Fly turns the key again, stroking the dash like a beloved pet and muttering into the cracked wood of the dash. “ That’s the way… ” 

Rae tries to imagine those hands on the dash scrawling types of dead animals like a simple grocery list. She can’t stop herself from asking after the engine catches, “ What’s a gwardar exactly? I heard it before but I can’t recall where…” She can’t stop tapping her fingertips against her forearms either, a light pinging sound like a little reminder of the fib. 

The wagon rumbles to life again and the skyline gets closer but Rae’s lost sight of Jamison’s tall form, soon she turns her head forward to look out the windshield. The tapping continues, she isn’t sure if Fly heard her at all until she revs the engine and unsurprisingly takes her eyes off the road at the same moment to pin Rae beneath a glassy reflection of her nervous habit.

“ What a good term it is, ain’t it? Right what it says on the tin; ‘go the other way’ it’s a viper. They can get almost as big as I am. Nasty bite too, where word is you’ll buy the farm if you don’t get help. Snakebit is an ugly way to go. ” Fly looks back at the road, unfazed by the subject.  
Rae’s gut tightens with unfamiliarity, only soothed with the knowledge that Jamison will certainly be waiting for them and maybe he’ll tell her what’s about to happen- ‘ Stop it, he’s the one who did all this… As though he’d just tell me. Maybe I sustained some type of damage when he choked me after all.’  
Shuddering and pushing away the thought she tries to tuck the dress under her to cushion the burns on the backs of her knees. 

~ 

The road into town is smooth and bare, well tended with vast collections of smooth and similarly sized flattened stones that made passage comfortable. Scaffolding rises in skeletal legs and the warping forms of cat walks hug into the walls, trailing up and out like the spokes of some great wheel. The innards and true beginning of the construction is well hidden behind towering shanties and sheetmetal cottages with shining rooftops rising over the walls like piles of metal coins. 

“ It’s really gorgeous, actually. ” Rae says it breathlessly, the car rolls to an amicable speed and the dust seems to thin out too. Her eyes can’t stop looking everywhere and her head turns despite the splitting ache and warmth of inflammation that still hadn’t fully gone down and the buzzing, crawling sensation of nanites. Sun drenched and nearly comfortable Rae gushes, “ Like a great, big, shining city on a hill or behind one I guess. How long did all of this take? ”  
Pulling to a stop near the wall and parking, Fly cackles at the way Rae still hasn’t undone her seatbelt, too busy taking it all in to move, tells her, “ Most of it was here by the time the Boss and I were playing the game.” She opens the door, the sound, shaking Rae out of her bewilderment. “ Walls and the aqueduct starts owe it to what he’s been saying all this time; something’s gonna happen so we’ve got to collect all the rain water we can, gotta purify it and store it too, start to disseminate it amongst our peers, or some such language.” 

Rae stands with her hand braced atop the car door, still turning her head but this time towards the commotion coming from deeper into the settlement. “No one ever talks about the North, except since the Omnium it’s been uninhabitable because of the storms. ” There’s the thrum of voices and something that could be hoof beats or drums echoing off the walls and doorways they’re passing, “Sounds like a good idea; is he planning on carrying it somewhere nearby?” 

Sunlight beats down on their procession, Rae and Fly are the only ones in the streets save for a few bin chickens and ravens. The latter complain gutturally at nothing in particular, shaking their shaggy throats like conspiratorial old soldiers; while the former scatter and flap noisily, but don’t take off or abandon their claim to the streets. 

Fly makes a non committal sound and cracks her neck, “ Dunno about that rubbish; that’s Mako’s sort of knot to untangle. We’re almost there; you’re doing great Rae, I know it’s a lot to ask with the disciplinary measures still fresh and all.” 

There’s an old well in a large lot they pass before the center of town. Classically arranged stones complete with half hearted roof over the pulley and bucket system and Rae almost snorts aloud at the sight of it. Beside her Fly watches her eyes wander to the rusty bucket explains,  
“ Used to be the old center of town back when Jamison and I were just kiddies. Back when the mayor and his wife had the run of it; before she drowned herself in it ages ago.” 

Rae grimaces at the gruesomeness and Fly’s candid attitude about the whole affair, replies, “ That’s awful, I hope her husband found her first… Seems horrible any way you slice it but she didn’t deserve to be gawked at either.” 

“ Hate to break it to you, rather, I can’t let you go on wondering about the local legends; Jamison’s the one who found her. Fished her out of there all white and cold. Swears up and down she spoke to him but they say the broad was already stiff and sloughing off the meat, a special kind of dead… Gone to live with the Angels and all her babies.” Fly talks and gestures to a big slumping shape of a decaying house to Rae’s right, “ Her ball and chain just never did come out of their house again. People left food sure, but I think he stopped imbibing long before then. Both of them was sick, they didn’t eat or sleep and walked the streets carrying on; and to this day some folks blame bad water.” 

“ That’s why Jamison wants to save water is it? Because he couldn’t save her back then, so now he’s got his purpose for helping these people here…” Rae doesn’t say the next thought, ‘ What in the ever loving fuck does that have to do with me?’ because she’s still got to get more, and that will never happen if Fly stops chatting. 

Something seems to be on her side because Fly smiles wide and grabs her hand to keep them from separating, tells her, “ It’s something like that I suppose. Can’t very well be the steward of heaven’s dominion over earth when there’s nothing live to speak of.”

Rae and Fly slow when people start to fill the streets and thoroughfares, meandering and leading them towards a large loose crowd. In what appeared to be the middle of town with tall, buildings that seemed to sway and move in the breeze. Their structures speckled with windows rising all around the sidewalks nearest.  
‘ Nothing like the leant to’s and huts or sprawling slums evoked by the local newscasters. ’ Rae is so caught by the alienness of it all that she doesn’t see the way the crowd seems to funnel herself and Fly up towards the center of it all. Both of them guided by the gentle swell and ebb of those on their feet; ears already straining to hear a familiar voice, ‘ He’s here, already started talking too-’ Rae attempts to suppress a shiver. 

“ See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently; being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of god. 

Which liveth and abideth forever.

For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. ” 

Both Fly and Rae lurch towards the opening at the front of the crowd, twisting and turning around the sweating forms of strangers already too rapt in Jamison’s message to feel their elbows. By the time they’re spat out, slimy and positioned awkwardly like a bit of gum the sun is beating down on everything and everyone. Rae attempts to shield her eyes with a forearm, thankfully hidden by a wide sleeve.

Jamison is standing behind an obviously homemade pulpit; shirtless, windswept and flushed from speaking. Even from where Rae is taking mincing steps to get to him, she sees the way his eyes are alight and intense on those in front of him. A murmur passes through the congregation when his wide mouth opens next, 

“ And we’re all about to get watered in good. All our hard fought and back breaking work will be put through its paces. Even though the storms are Hell-borne, true enough. The promise of plenty is still here, now! 

If they would all look upon his work, here in front of their very eyes.” 

Jamison fully rises to his considerable height, proudly with his long fingers and arms outstretched towards god first, then the crowd. Rae knows he can see her approaching and Fly from the right, but he pays them no mind until she’s close enough to touch. When Jamison’s fingers wrap around her shoulder he’s staring at her adoringly, reverently. “ Our salvation, here at last. The purification of vileness of the spirit and body begins here. All, for those who would be laid bare before her most awesome touch. ” The swamp of people gasp at the image before them.

Watching them like the ravens before, out of the corner of Rae’s vision roiling and rising like an eclectic sea; each individual in a strange fashion unlike anything she’s seen. Almost all wear their hair long and wild or twisted into tails and chignons to keep it out of sun blasted faces; lace brimming over the foreheads of many like a waterfall while others seem to prefer widely brimmed black hats. The cloth on everyone’s backs looked sturdy and breathable, carefully made though patched and worn. Most stand with their eyes averted from the glare of the sun, but they’re greedily soaking in the sight of what is clearly god’s providence. Rae kneels, robed in soft blue like an old painting; still holding Fly by the wrist and hand who, after a very nearly painful collection of seconds kneels beside her as well. 

“ One of these women is well known to you; known for her dishonesty and larcenous soul. Her complacency in wounding her fellows over and over; dedicating her gifts to causes with no merit, no honest leg to stand on and terrorizing those most vulnerable with light fingers. No way too low for this one.” Jamison fixes his gaze on the top of Fly’s head when he talks. 

Rae can see the way her mouth tightens with each syllable he rattles out. An uneasy grin breaks out on her face too and stays there. Her pulse under Rae’s metal thumb thuds forcefully.

“ Her name is true for the company she keeps, and her legacy is like a plague. A web of lies and deceit that took away from us all as a community. But even creatures that are small and low, people who act like they are too can be redeemed in service to heaven.” Jamison looks out towards the congregation, “We are all here, we can all live well and with with our needs fulfilled by god. Remember Elijah when the drought came, and he got food and water. The high and low of it; not another pair of boots or a pair of hands to cajole into working the land. Heaven provided food from the skies, and water springing from rocks. And now, from fire came penance for Fly. ”

The grin on Fly’s face gets more pained by the second, her smile more a fixed snarl of a jackal but Rae sees the way her breathing is still slow and steady too. 

“ Today Fly will face the evil plaguing her; in front of god and every one of you good people she will wear her sin as proudly as she wears her jewels and pretty things. Coiled around her neck and staring her down; she’ll prove her fealty to heaven’s kingdom, and rise above it with help from Our Lady to control the fires of wickedness. ” Jamison gestures to a bag beside them, tied neatly at the top with a thick, hairy rope.

“ Showtime, now they’ll all see; won’t that just be lovely.” It’s unclear who Fly is speaking to, herself or Rae.  
Jamison releases his hold on Rae’s rounded shoulder to walk to the bag and lean over it, watching the way it shifted and poked out at the edges, biding his time-

‘ -Snake bit is an ugly way to go. ’ Rae hears it alongside the sound of her own heart. ‘ I never was any good at testing under pressure… What if I’m not strong enough to combat venom and purify it in time? ’

When Jamison’s right hand grabs the bag and he stands in one nearly smooth motion, the entire congregation seems to clamour and rise too. The finely tuned hand seems to have no trouble grasping the back of the snake’s mottled brown and orange head and back, while his left flagrantly, daringly uncovered it’s hissing face easily. He moves closer until he’s nearly standing over them, facing the crowd.

“ It’s all been provided by heaven, the way of Fly’s redemption, and the way of ours as well; our injuries may not lay good junkers low, dying slow like dogs when all we’ve needed was care. Beside this sinner is an outsider, once a raised with worshippers of greed and self fulfillment but she is not one herself. I saw her, I saw her good works in my dreams and I saw gods handling upon her.“ Jamison says while locking heavy lidded eyes with Rae, peering from underneath them and curling his mouth inwards too, absolutely alight with his own talks and weird mutterings. First laying the body of the snake; eager to uncoil its body from his solid metal forearm and bicep, onto Fly’s shoulder closest to her.

Fly’s hand is still within Rae’s own, steady but starting to sweat when Jamison lays the rest of the gwardar over the back of her neck. He releases the head shortly after. Both of them freeze every muscle but Fly continues to inhale deep and slow, like she’s preparing to fall asleep. The brown head of the serpent weaves back and forth, seems to look at it’s own reflection for a moment.

“ How can we unseat this evil? Cast out that which has doomed the world outside; idolatry to strange and bespoiling figures like money and greed.” Jamison calls out to the crowd, his eyes falling on two women in the front of the congregation. One being broad and nearly as tall as he is; while her lover, based on their interlocked fingers over the padded arm of a wrought iron wheelchair with tall fine wheels reminiscent of an old carriage, is shorter and lithe. From within a nest of complicated plaits the seated woman calls back,

“ How can we make the devil himself turn tail? Who amongst us, Preacher Jamison, who can claim innocence? ” The whole amalgamation of young and old, clamours amongst their, echoing the question. Voices raising louder and higher without rafters above their heads, unaware of the clouds moving in with the wind carrying their voices. 

Until Jamison raises both fists, clenched to the vast openness of the sky; his face and sharp chin tipped back to show his bobbing Adam’s apple. He’s laughing but the noise of the throng swallows it up at first, no one but Rae seems to notice.

Rae tilts her head so she’s looking at the closest side of Fly’s face, sees the flush high in her cheeks before it disappears under her eyewear. On the next exhale Rae watches the body of the snake coil, it’s muscles working under shining, dry skin; crawling down Fly’s shoulder and over her bicep to wrap around her forearm. Incredulously she thinks, ‘ It’s going towards the ground and trying to escape-’ A too close grumble thunder rattles her teeth, and the whole town goes silent as well. Rae sees Fly jump and startle at the same moment the gwardar sinks it’s fangs into her wrist. The snake drops to the earth, tries to retreat only to be crushed; it’s head popping under the tread of Jamison’s peg.

The congregation whoops and stomps at the sound, the airy crunch that preceded the continued writhing of the serpent’s body. 

He speaks so loud at first he almost goes hoarse, but it no one minds when he starts anew, “ Not one of us here, that’s for damned sure. We have all profited from Fly’s talents, or we’ve shuttered our windows to her prowling into our neighbor’s house. Only cared when our own wealth was vanished. ”  
There’s nothing but the whining of the wounded, shuddering aforementioned before them. Another punctuation of thunder seems to free something in all of the people; roaring once more with mostly wordless cries of pain with her. Rae made out the odd snippets of the most guilty; talking openly to the sky itself or Jamison perhaps, both. Some connected by verbal contracts to hire her long since mum and others wept openly as the victims. ‘ The ones who wear both about them scream the loudest. ’ the thought is pushed away, just a distraction.

Raindrops hit Rae’s nose, soon their pelting her hair and soaking her shoulders and chest too, she’s sinking into the saturated earth cool and calming on her burns. She feels the thrum at the joining of their fingers; Fly’s own shaking with tremors and pain, but Rae’s hands and forearms are more than dry; with steam rising lightly from the fabric covering them like an iron.

Gasps rose from the crowd and those who could do so safely went to their knees, to join both women in mud, hands fingering crucifixes around their necks or clenched over their hearts for those who had none. Jamison speaks, then leading them in chanting, low and sure like the storm around them,

“ Yea- the Holy Flame of the Lord, yea- the promise of heaven’s warmth and mercy on earth, to all who would turn to her and see! A-men! ” 

“ A-men! ”

“ Bless the soldiers of cleansed by fire, bless us, soldiers and builders for the lord, A-men!” 

“A-men!” 

“ This thirst that grows deep in us will be quenched, heaven will provide for the faithful. Rae is the one who’s come to us, come to us to help us find the strength to cast out the poison, Amen!”

“A-men!”

Fly still manages to grasp her hand, loose and slumping over everywhere else while her limbs hang useless. Warmer now, even though without the nanites Rae provides she would be clammy with fever and venom coursing its way to her kidneys. ‘ Now’s not the time to think of major organ failure. Renal failure doesn’t happen over night, she’ll be fine because I was here. Just breathe…’

Rae wonders if this is what purpose feels like.


	6. Lamentations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally kind of back on track with story-ing. Thank you once more to those who are reading this work, and bearing with me and my hectic schedule.

  
Rae knows something is wrong, not with her performance or abilities that’s been clear from the way the people part when she passes whispering again, “ Yea, Holy Flame of the Lord.” Casting their eyes down when the procession of herself and Jamison supporting the still boneless body of Fly between them make their way through the muddy streets. Every arterial path is clogged with members of Jamison’s flock, watching them from a distance great enough to be respectable.

Ahead the two women from front the crowd seem to be leading Jamison and Rae, with bells on the back of the high backed chair tinkling with every turn of the wheels. No one is saying anything anymore, silent and dedicated as anything she's ever seen as the path winds like a snake.

‘ I been told lies my whole time here, everyone on the coast tells how wild and uncontrollable Junkers are. How they’re more like animals than human. But they're just... People.’

Still there’s barely contained agitation clear in the lines of Jamison’s jaw, from the moment they’ve started walking. The way veins are standing out on the curve of one shoulder cap and leading into his bicep, catching water droplets and directing them; have nothing to do with the weight of the girl they’re carrying. He speaks to Rae but looks everywhere else with an air of distrust, “ We’ll be holed up in the new Mayor’s house. Gotta wait out the worst of the deluge before it’ll be safe; but you did so well. Oh, my special one, I couldn’t ask you for more.”

‘ Maybe not safe in the classic meaning, but not too worse for wear. Not the public whipping or wallowing orgy out of a movie.’ Rae can’t help herself and replies, “ You will though, I’m sure of that.”

He lets out a braying laugh, locking eyes with her and making a sound somewhere between a hum and a snort, says, “ You’re right on that one, no rest for any of us; with the exception of the wicked in this case.” Flickers his eyes down to Fly, then back up into Rae’s own. “ There’s still the matter of water storage to figure, purification too. It’s a bloody mess really. I’ll be talking to Judith and Angelita this evening and we’ll set out in the morning.” Treading through a puddle, as if to prove his point; Rae watches the two leading them and the way the chair’s wheels send out ripples through the standing water. The ground too parched and starved to soak it up properly, there’s little pools like mirrors scattered everywhere. Grease and dirt of some kind form a film over the pools, loitering just under the entries of homes. Giving the whole street a reflective quality, not unlike her forearms, still slightly warm and shining from the water still sheeting from them. The homes they’re passing are long and skinny, tall as well with crooked window sills and laundry streaming and hanging heavy from the lines that would have to remain and dry anew. Rae’s eyes feast on the sheet metal siding and salvaged wood that's come together in a patchwork, with car bumpers forming rusted arches over open doorways.

‘ It’s beautiful, and people are building out here. Not salvaging or crouched around brush fires cooking five legged lizards. There’s houses, blocks of them. There must be a hundred people living here in this town.’ Rae realizes, through a slight haze of exhaustion. ‘ People eating, working and sleeping. Just living.’

Jamison watches under lowered lashes, as the shadow of a smile ghosts over her full lips and he follows her eyes, seeing where she’s looking through the rain and tells her, “ There’s five families each to a house, sometimes more. Seven in this one with the blue door. Each according their need and all that, just think of it Darling; five mums and two pa’s. No one goes without love here. Ankle biters don’t up and disappear, sleep in alleys or paw through trash anymore.”

“ I’m glad to hear about that last part, but it must get confusing sometimes.” The thought still makes Rae grin a bit, suppressing a yawn at the thought of some sleep. “ I have heard it takes a village; in this case you’ve got it, I suppose.”

He nods, says nothing in reply wipes his forearm above his eyes and cuts a stark line in the coating of dust and sweat he’s accumulated. Changing the subject and grumbling  “ Nearly there now, not soon enough. Can’t miss it, I’m sure Fly gabbed your ears off about the big house and the well. Telling you all sorts of stories, that’s her way; should’ve had her take a vow of silence and saved you the horror.”

“ I’m glad she told me, she’s... interesting. Personable at least, and very talkative when she gets going.” Rae tells him, doesn’t complete her thought of ‘ a lot like you. ’ Not knowing how he would take it. Not really knowing anything right now except she’s safe for the moment. Passing the well makes Rae’s skin crawl. The thought of a dead woman floating forgotten and bobbing in the dark for who knows how long until-

‘ He’s the one who found her. The only one who knew where to look, or cared.’ Rae thinks too long about it. About Jamison and his knowing of things; she thinks so hard that when he steps onto the ramp up the porch she doesn’t see, nearly trips instead.

“Watch your step Rae. Don’t want you hurt, can’t abide it. We’re so close now...”

“ Unless you do it? Hurting is different when it’s punishment.” She says it, biting and fast; still thinking about that last part he’s said. Somehow, Rae knows he doesn’t mean their lodgings for the night.

“ Now you’re getting it. Nothing that doesn't serve a higher purpose can be allowed to just run on. Distracts us all from things we oughtn’t look away from.” Jamison answers blithely, not rising to anger; relaxing his shoulders and neck as they pass under the safety of the eaves.

The big house looks like an old hunting lodge of some sort, with a gable roof and porch in front bookended by large timbers hung thick with the newly drying hides of rabbits or possums. No tree that ever grew around here Rae was sure of that, something big and grand someone had imported a long time ago; a crowning sort of jewel on a vacation home. Hobby hunters or trophy seekers, looking to prowl the wilds for a beast to kill; dinner conversation with their guests and a feather in their hat.

‘ At least it’s being used now. Really used, not just two months out of the year here and there.’

Stepping inside her nose is filled with the smell of stew, something fragrant and heady competing with the scent of warm bread. Rae’s mouth is watering when they pass through the foyer, straight back into the kitchen where a long sturdy table with a bench and a few chairs greet her like an old friend. Settling her sore, overworked body into the smooth wood is near to heaven.

Jamison wastes no time laying Fly on the bench, eagerly shucking her weight and the touch of her arm looped the back of his neck; shivering back into himself with his skin like an ill fitting jacket. Rae takes the seat beside her, still touching her, still leeching out poison from her organs. She barely stirs on the bench; save for flushed tip of her nose wiggling at the smells wafting through the house.

‘ Never cleared out venom before, I don’t know how the flow should be adjusted. But there’s no harm in giving her an extra boost. Fly said she’s been bit by critters before, living here all her life she could be carrying hepatitis A or E from water-’

“ Preacher, may we have a word?” The dark haired woman sticks her head back from where she’s disappeared into another makeshift room, an area sectioned off with an old floral sheet. “If we would not interfere with Her most Holy of Holies.” An incline of her head, and a breath passes her lips framed by a dark and spiraling design, “ My name is Angelita, it’s an honor to have you in our family home. Twelve of us in this house, it’s a good house; Preacher sees to all our needs, us and the Domingo family; we’ll see to yours. He told us you’d be here and we gave you the attic room with the chimney pipe through it so you’ll stay warm.”

Jamison says nothing, looking into the woodgrain of the table like there’s an answer in the whorls and rings.

Rae blinks owlishly, snapping herself out of her thoughts, hoping she doesn't look as embarrassed as she feels and answers “ M-my name is Rae, you can call me that if you’d like. And it’s my honor really, your home is lovely.” She takes another breath, waits for Jamison to chime in.

“ Supposing in a few hours is as good a time as any. If I know Judith she’s got to recover from that most awesome display. Immersing herself in good works and the like, I’ll keep just fine Ange. Let her be for a time before we get down to the meat of this; let our Holy Flame get some food in her too. Healing the wicked is hungry work, and up till now we’ve been fasting; got to purify her body of all those chemicals they feed them over there.” He’s looking at the table when he says it, scratching at the small fish carved into the wood. Tracing the clean unbroken line with a sliver of fingernail.

Angelita smiles at them both, makes a face at Fly still prostrate on the bench; not a smile or a frown but her eyes soften for a moment. “ She’ll be right. Strong as a billy goat’s arse, that one is.”

Rae wonders if she’s speaking to her or trying to sow intent into the world. Either way, Angelita leaves, with the swishing of the curtain.

“ Angie likes her. Used to bring her food when we was just kiddies, let her sleep in the alley behind the house when the weather was bad. Didn't tell the mayor about it neither, that rort wouldn't give a zack to weight his dead grannie’s eyes.” Jamison pins Rae beneath an intense, fathomless stare. “ Got a bit of time til we’re due back down here, let’s load her up in the room and we’ll all dry well enough. Can even use the lift, backs of your knees being what they are... And for pity’s sake let me carry her, she won’t die in the interim. Fly’s been bit by so many foul things she’s half poison herself, probably immune by now; but hey, can't be too careful. Not with Mako breathing down my neck taking her out for a spin in the outer territories as is.”

Rae watches Jamison hoist Fly up on his right shoulder, offering his left hand to help her up from the chair. Heading to the room on the right, they vanish through the floral curtain and take another turn, past a sheet metal half wall into the center of the house. An industrial lift sits in the middle of the floor, braced and held by a scaffolding frame on all sides, towering up past three floors that Rae can see standing on the grate floor. Jamison stands in the center, ushering Rae on with his hand at the small of her back; before pressing the large button to start the contraption, he moves his hand down to her curved hip, to pull the train of her dress free from the edge.

Sawdust rains down on them from above as the lift groans into motion. Nearly crawling past the landings, but all three of them ascend with no trouble; stopping at the top where light greets Rae’s eyes from a slanted skylight.

“ Should’ve seen it when the lift was first put in, had to crank the damn thing up, up, and away.” Jamison tells her, stepping off first and offering his hand again to Rae for the small half step to dismount.

It’s already warmer at the top of the house, condensation beads along the glass mimicking downpour outside. The sound of rain hitting the roof covers their footfalls until Jamison opens the attic door, ducking inside with a groan.

The room is filled with light, large windows on two of the three walls give it an eerie quality; like a shop window or a plant nursery. The steel grey of the sky looks fuzzy with rainfall, like the back of a cat, shot through with darker nearly black clouds stretched as far as Rae’s eyes can see.

There's two beds crowded nearer to the huge metal pipe that sprouts from the floor pushed into the ceiling; both of them recently made and smelling fresh like rushes of rosemary and lavender. Jamison stoops over to the closest bed, lets Fly slide off his shoulder unceremoniously and onto the coverlet. Ignores the way she giggles, with enough color back in her cheeks Rae sits on the bed with her and takes her hand again. Jamison walks a strange elliptical pattern towards the corners of the room, chasing shadows or drifts of dust it’s not clear; he makes the sign of the cross over the furthest darkened edges before he’s satisfied. Then he’s creaking and clomping his way to the other cot and settling.

The warmth from the stovepipe is nearly luxurious, and Rae barely even notices the small aftertaste of smoke from the oven below. Her hair curling and pulling up with the humidity at the same time her dress starts to lose it’s Greek statue quality of being truly waterlogged. Jamison wasted no time, already stripped down completely and sitting forward on the other bed and careful to hang his single sock off the edge of the foot-board and closest to the permeating heat.

“ Really rolled out the welcome wagon for you. Fresh linens and beating the buggies from the cots too; nothing but the best for you, Rae. C-couldn’t have you catching your death out there, where would we all be then?” Jamison says through chattering teeth, rubbing at the sinewy flesh of his upper arms and creating friction that turns them from sun-kissed to irritated pink, causing the spiraling flame tattoo adorning his right arm to seemingly glow from within.  

Curled into himself he looks nearly normal, like the shivering transients she’s helped since arriving in this new posting.

‘ A far cry from the larger than life preacher he was a bit ago. Untouchable and whipping people into a lather about me and that rain.’ The thought makes Rae shudder too; the memory of his power, the way he moved them. Glancing everywhere but the profile of his body leaning close enough to the stove pipe he’s flushed, she spies his bible laid under the stiff canvas like material of his trousers. Weathered and damaged, certainly beyond what happened today but still miraculously whole and packed to the gills with newly inserted bits of paper scrap. Rae thinks back to the note, the list of dead animals and the snake, wonders how much more of her life is planned out like some itinerary.

Wondering if she could get her hands on that little book and find out.

Jamison yawns, stretching his back and rolling his neck this way and that with a chorus of pops and crackles. Settling back on his wrists to lean away from the warm air, he sucks on his teeth and makes a face. “ Gotta get some rest before talking all that shite out... Ah!” He jumps up like he’s been shot, stares at Rae with his tongue caught between his eyeteeth. Leaning over to push the beds together with the awful squealing noise of the legs sounding like crying. Moving his cot until the edge of it hits the side Rae is occupying. “ There we go! Right as rain, now you can care for your charge and I can keep an eye on you. Or half of one; gotta close them for a moment, only a moment.”

He flops himself back, soon as the words have left his mouth; closing his honey-gold eyes and breathing slower and slower with each passing second. Seeming to fall from consciousness as soon as his spine hits the mattress.

Rae doesn’t even move until his respiration syncs with Fly’s, both of them breathing easier because of her. Between them now, there’s something nearly comfortable about it.

‘ Maybe that’s just the heat talking now. It’s almost nice, simple like a big pile of sleeping puppies... If one of them mauled me when I ran.’ Rae frowns, looks at Jamison’s smooth face and the line of drool that’s dribbled over his lower lip; trying to decide if he’s really asleep at all. Or just breathing slowly and preforming another trick, something dastardly or just trying to fool her into an action she’ll inevitably regret.

‘ Something transgressive in his opinion; snooping is probably a sin to him. But damn him and his dogma. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this plan he’s set, the lot of them have set.’ Rae seethes, squeezes Fly’s hand a bit too hard and doesn't realize it till the woman beside her is giggling again. In the yawning silence, filling the scant inches between them Fly breathes out something that sounds like “ Mako” or “ Marco” when she squeezes back.

‘ Just breathe, grab it and open it. Then you’ll know something. You can start to plan yourself and maybe, just maybe you’ll get out of this without any more scars. Got too many of them as is...’

Rae’s other hand creeps to the other cot, around the damp lump of Jamison’s pants to touch the leather bound book. Her own breath caught in her chest while the other two drag it in, lungful by satisfying lungful.

Dragging the corner of the Bible from under his trousers is easier than she thinks, the clothing holds it’s shape like a small tent, not even showing the book has moved. In her palm it’s nearly slimy, sliding down to the heel of her hand until it stops on the small hillock of metal encased flesh. Embossed and once beautiful, the gold leafing that filled the letters is all but done for, save for the occasional flake still dug into the corners of the ‘h’ and the bottom of the ‘l’. It’s smaller and heavier than it looks, Rae wonders absently how Jamison’s pants stayed up with it dragging down the pocket.

She opens it to the first page; where the nameplate is not blank, but scratched out over and over again with pencil strokes looping back on themselves like the fish she saw on the table until it was illegible. Turning the the page, Jamison’s cramped handwriting fills a yellowed and partially singed page-

_~_

  
_LAMENTATIONS OF JAMISON FAWKES VOL. 1, UNKNOWN DAY YEAR OF 2063_

_And I wept, O Lord above how I wept at my Ma’s passing. The look of her body laid low over the gouged wooden table, the blade of her skinner had passed over it a thousand thousand times without a mark; yet mine own knife dug up chunks of it, thick and hard as to be indistinguishable from bone shards. She wouldn’t cut herself, though that steady hand shook upon her lap when I said grace in the morning._

_I remembered every word that passed from her lips, foul temper or no as though it was all said yesterday; and some of it was. Ma had been hearty enough the day past and only slightly beset by tremors that very morning. Her lip curled around the same words she told me every day since I was eleven._

_“ Go and check the traps, Jami. Don’t let the Devil catch you.”_

_And I did, Lord I ran swiftly as the wind shocking my aching knees that carried me; knees that I had scarred and bruised since I could remember praying on the floor, supplicant before my boarded up window. My Ma had told me I had saint’s knees; because I could not remember a time that they were not blue dynamical to purple._

_Like her lips and open gaping eyes, not the blue of the sky but glooming dark like something was slugged out of her. When she had told me about the town over the hill, shadows took her. I knew that she had seen evil when out of her mouth she repeated Psalms 58, “ Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.” The sight of her still then, straight back and I dropped the sack of critters like garbage and not life itself._

_And I thoughtfully made the sign of the cross on myself, nodding and somehow understanding even though hers was the only other face I saw; her judgement of them. Another gift passed to me, like her visions. But not anymore with Ma dead and drooling slung over the carving block. I still crossed myself for the comfort of it, before I stepped into the big room to approach her. The killing room stank with more than animal smells and dirt; more than grease to ease the cruel jaws of the extra traps hanging from the walls on their clattery, whining chains._

_Her lips drawn back from her teeth like a snarling dog, foam flecked her teeth and cheek where it was stuck hard to the table and mixing with the blood of a half gutted rabbit. Ma’s eyes didn’t look at me when I stared back, not even when I touched her hair back from her ears; her shining red baubles the only ones she allowed herself._

_Mine own peeling, day cooked lips talking to no one, “ Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.” I wept then, my hands shook taking them but not from the prickles of pain to lodge them in my ringing head; I was pained by my own powerlessness in the face of her death and could not leave without a bit of her._

_And I left that room of death, Lord, I could not stand it not to even bury my mother in a paupers grave. Tears blinded me to anything but I did behold a box of her things, under her cot and tied shut with a green ribbon. Taking that aged box under an arm and out to the pit where we burned our waste; with garbage and bones standing around in wake of funeral guests, I sent what remained of her into the skies._

_Papers curled, a bottle burst with the heat, and when the box had fallen away a bit of cloth refused to burn; instead melting and liquescent, with buttons that floated in the conflation. I stood vigil until the odor of her living was carried away on the winds.Taking the remainder of the embers, pushing them under the house, fed them through the same gaps that snakes and other foul things used to shelter; to burn the whole house and wipe us from the land._

_Her Bible would not be burned, would not be wiped from this earth but instead came with me. Weighting my jacket in one corner like a stone, wisdom sinking me closer to the ground._

_This was the beginning of my wanderings. And God spoke to me in the soft language of the land, spoke to me alone._

_I didn’t hear my mother anymore, and Lord, I let the devil catch me. The trap bit me and bit deep; shredded my leg and broke me. But I was God touched from then on too, and the townsfolk knew where to find me, followed the smoke and stink and my miserable cries._

_God touched through the hands of other mothers and fathers I had never known; I was healed. And I saw, and I saw, and I hurt._

_Soon I saw their hurt too._

_~_

Gooseflesh covering her body; Rae feels her breath catch again and her eyes are so strained she can barely keep them from crossing. She doesn’t notice that only Fly keeps breathing steadily. Doesn’t notice Jamison’s eyes have opened, watching her eyes flick from word to word; until it’s too late and he’s reaching for her wrist-

‘ It’s always been too late for him; and too late for me. Since my gauntlets backfired and since his mother. There’s never been anything- No plan. Just a journal, not anything like some overwrought evil scheme. ’  
  
When his finger touches her, a spark jumps between them. Bright blue and painful, but there’s nothing telling in Jamison’s eyes. No promise of pain or irritation, but like the bottom of his pupils have been pulled out with the static; yawning black threatening to overtake the gold as the numbness fades.

His mouth opens and Rae expects rage, righteous indignation and fury but instead she’s greeted by something else entirely, “ Rae, I’ve just had a dream about you, a prophecy. A vision of loveliness to come; our wanderings coming to an end.”

‘ How did he find me? Not the way they found him, hearing pain and following it. I found him too, like history repeating itself. Just swirling eddies in a river; a small decision all in all, I decided to help him.’

Rae thinks of a battery, jumped back to life; something moves between them and she’s aware of how heavy her limbs feel. How warm Jamison is in comparison to her own clammy flesh, awake and alert; like he's been risen from the dead at the thought of her.

Jumping back and forth within her own mind, switching grooves or tracks as easily as water flows down the windows, streets, and everything else. While she’s teetering on the edge of something between sleeping and waking, outside of time and lost between his scratched in memories and her own.

Her sharp breath slows, pulling in through her nose easily when he lets go. The muscles in her tighten, hitch at the lack of contact, the cold-

Rae reaches out for Jamison’s left hand; feels how hot and alive he is despite what she’s read. Watches the smile break over his face like the sea parting, he’s so much younger than she thought he was, younger than her from what she remembers Fly mentioning. 

The room is silent now, save for the occasional drip of water off the eaves, but the heavy pelting off the roof like dropping marbles has stopped. Like the world has quieted with her mind; stopped, started and coming alive again. It’s clarity brought by bone-deep exhaustion, pain communicated across time; the noises of animals determined to keep on living.  
‘ That’s all he’s been doing, all any of us have really been doing. Never assume malice when ignorance will suffice; maybe he’s the only hope they’ve got out here, like they were his all those years ago.’

Rae starts to understand and Jamison watches the realization hit her face like sunlight. But it’s too late in the day for that anymore, even with the clouds empty. She remembers a saying, something about the golden hour before sundown, but doesn’t know if there’s a dark equivalent.

The world is washed in grey and stillness in place of noise, and something doesn’t feel wrong about that.


	7. Coming home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're really cooking with gas here folks.

  
Her dress is off, hanging over the footboard of the cot like an exhausted spirit. Empty and slung over the arching metal with its drapery sweeping the floor. Still damp and heavy enough it just stays still, even with the way Jamison is shivering, shaking the whole bed apart slowly but surely.

Beside him his Holy Flame is resting, peaceful and fitful. Exhausted by her gift and discussing visions, he himself was all too familiar with the bone deep weariness that came with spiritual matters. Running a marathon inside your own mind.

He had told her Fly was stable enough, that Rae needed some real rest before they were all due downstairs. She listened, nodding emphatically, yawning wide and noisy(reminding him of how the soft tunnel of her mouth felt), doing exactly what he wanted. Too tired to put up a fight, or maybe just resigned at that particular time.

Truthfully, he had been nursing a half-hearted erection since that very moment.

Then he heard the sound of her dress hitting metal, close to the heat. While Rae moved closer to him, presenting the pale expanse of her back, huddling under the blankets and curling into herself with chill.

He’s frozen and thinking. It takes him no time to think of things such as this, opportunities laid out like ants; and he pecks them up like a sharp beaked bird. Jamison hears the familiar roar in his mind, a crescendo of something crashing to the front of his skull. He’s very nearly deaf with it, the world before him is silent as a photograph and burning into his eyelids the longer he puts off blinking. So he talks instead,

“ It’s warmer if we share heat. Your gift takes it out of you, makes it more beautiful I think. God touched you, but tempers you in the same breath. Giveth and taketh away, can’t draw from an empty well...” Jamison offers it quietly as he can manage, doesn’t want to snap her out of the comfort of half sleep.

“ That’s convenient, isn't it? Something else for my own good, you can’t have me catching a chill now. Besides, I can’t just fix that up like I did your friend...” Rae hunches her shoulders, tenses her neck before continuing, “ I don't really know why but it never does heal me so easily.”

Temptation and greed in equivalence roil under his skin, crawling on the spirits of his right arm and leg in heaven.

“ Because it’s a gift, meant to be shared. Not something to make you invincible, not the sort of thing that gives you a big head.” Jamison offers it, at the same time he offers the heat of his palm on her partially exposed shoulder blade.

None but god sees him smile, closing his eyes when he feels Rae lean into his fingers.

He feels her sigh, louder than when she says, “Well get under here then,” but he hears that too. First, he’s ramrod straight and flat on his back, with only his shoulder and knobby elbows touching her. Staring at the dust covered cobwebs in the ceiling, when Rae moves back to press against him. Her skin so soft he can barely feel it until she shifts again.

“ If you’re going to do this, do it properly and hold me. This is about sharing heat after all.” Rae's voice is throaty with near unconsciousness.

Jamison says nothing, just does what she asks. Curling around her, with his hips arched away and back to hide the fact that he was hard. His right arm is firm around her middle, heavier than his left but if Rae minds she doesn't make any indication.

She just moves towards him, pressing her back flush to his chest.

His hips are arched away from her, bowing him backwards. But he’s shaking, and staring past the wheeling, elliptical lines of her curls sticking up from the pillow. If she feels him, coming apart, Rae doesn’t make a sound except for breathing slow, steady, and deep.

Jamison feels her moving, imperceptibly back towards him. Searching for the rest of his body like he searched for her; sighing when she finds it because he has no where else to go. He throbs against her firm, round buttocks, big and hard as the gearshift back in the wagon. His hand creeps under the blankets, pushing her hips slightly forward and holds her open for long enough he can push between her thighs.

He hopes it will be enough, lies to himself, knowing that it wouldn't.

With every second he lies there, he gets stiffer. Vaguely wondering how well sound would carry in this house if he just-

_‘ Dig a hand into that thigh and pull her legs apart, push in, just for a minute.’_

As if sensing it, Rae moves herself up a bit, adjusting his trajectory so the head of his cock is pushed against the soft lower lips of her pussy. The blanket shifts too, and he can smell her cunt and-

_‘ Just take her. Take her here and now, make that beautiful mouth wrap around your name like a prayer.’_

He moves forward, twitchy rhythmless little affairs, ghosts of the movements he really wants to make. The essence of desire, slicks his way and makes each push nearly into her easier and easier-

_‘ She won't stop you, can feel her getting wetter. Smell her too, and she’s yours, and no one can stop you now that she’s in your land now.’_

Jamison keeps his hand on her hip, pulls her open again and rubs the fat head of his dick along the damp seam of Rae's beautiful, heaven sent body. Breathing too loud and too fast to hear her own short, unsteady inhalations. Focused on the slickness bridging them, not noticing the way her back is arching too-

 _‘ Just a pop in. Won't hurt anyone, get a taste and get it out of your system until the real moment. It has to be perfect, the solstice isn’t that far out and then you’ll have her forever after everyone sees.’_  
  
He’s thinking so hard when he feels the first agonizing inch of his cock breach her, assuming he’s imagined it; nothing happens. Nothing moves except her hips twitching imperceptibly again, back towards him. Jamison is still shivering, despite the sweat dripping from his nose and running into his eyes. The air seems to clot and stick in his lungs instead of opening them, and it’s only when Rae moves closer again that he realizes what he’s done.

He moves back a bit like he's been struck, but not far enough to properly pull out. He feels the crown of his dick catch inside her, pulling that wet ring of muscle taught as the edge of a drum.

_‘ Can't. I bloody well can’t do this here, it isn't right. Gotta wait till the right moment otherwise it’s all for naught. It’s all wrong, have to get home first where it’s safe; then the solstice-’_

But here and now it’s wet and hot between them, better than Jamison can articulate so he just whines. Huffing air back and forth over Rae’s ears and hair, feeling tears and sweat gathering, making tracks on his skin.

_‘ I know I’m a sinner, I know I’m weak, I’m just a bloody animal underneath all this fucking finery. No better than I ever been-’_

Jamison gasps and pulls back, not away, but out of her properly. The wet popping sound of separation tunnels into his brain, dueling with his panting and covering up the way Rae whimpers beside him.

His hand moves, comes down hard and bruising on her thigh, pushing it towards it’s twin and giving him a soft, tunnel to fuck into. Slick from sweat and his precum, now nearly steady as a dripping faucet, Jamison moves his hips in fast, short bursts.

_‘ Don’t wake her, don’t make it worse than it already is. She’ll know, she’ll know you’re just a pretender and a lout and a lustful dog-’_

Each push presses the tip of him against her labia, smearing evidence of his humanity, his weakness, like a stain. He feels her almost part for him again and again, swears Rae’s hips are canting back, just the smallest amount. Like an invitation to paradise. The angle changes again, dragging the crown of his cock past her clit and he pushes her ass apart so he can chase it.

“ So bloody perfect, soon, soon, oh so soon and we’ll be in the clear.” He’s babbling softly now, with that familiar coil springing in his guts. Can’t help but tell her something, even if she isn’t really here for it.

 _‘ Deserves an explanation, even a shitty one.’_ He keeps his eyes open when he cums, staring at her cheek and jaw, the line of her shoulders. Past her too, and into the future when he wouldn't be wasting his seed like this.

Jamison doesn't wait to catch his breath, sliding out from between her legs to stand on his own mismatched, shaking pair. He dresses quickly with something rising in the back of his throat, not regret, never regret. He steps into the hallway, heading down to get some water to wet his parched mouth, even though the rest of him is rank with sweat.

It’s as though a thousand unforgiving and glowing eyes mark his procession. The reeking smell of sin and vice, he can see it floating about his head like a shameful halo.

He misses the pair of eyes that have been open, the signs that she was present for all of it. And by the time she finishes herself off, laying in a pool of his cum, Jamison is long gone.

~

“ The jarrahdales have all come in, with the sweet taters and zucchinis. Bigger than last season, when the whole ground looked shorn as an old timer before March.” Judith tells them, from her spot at the head of the long table. “ Should’ve seen the little birdies just this week past, snapping up the shoots like they’re good, green grapes popping on a tongue.” Her ruddy cheeks showing with pride, while Jamison, Rae and Fly admire the hearty stew set before them; gold and thick with coriander and pepper. There’s a basket of crusty, brownish bread piling high enough Angelita has to look around it to see them at all.

The steam and the smells in the house flowing between heavy curtains, partitioning them from the children whose voices carry from the other end of the lower floor. Quarreling over bread and canned jams from last season with unruly, small hands. Outside all of this, behind the great wooden doors clouds roll in on themselves giving the appearance of handfuls of darts. But no more rain falls, and they are waiting for something too, Jamison knows it.

“ Can’t wait to try it Jude, smells like a dream in here. Better in fact. I ain’t had the best luck with those lately.” Fly cracks a smile, twirls her spoon between the tips of her fingers as she says it.

Jamison isn’t really watching them, but now he’s staring perilously at the space between the corner of Rae’s mouth and her cheek. She's flushed pink from the temperature of the room and training her eye on the meal.

_‘ She didn't notice, didn’t feel you and doesn't remember your stink. Wiped it from her with her own sweat too as soon as you came back.’_

So he tells himself.

“ Preacher Jamison, would you lead us in blessing this meal?” Judith’s voice penetrates his head, resounding between his ears like a stone dropped in a pail.

“ Of course, and would Our Lady join me in grace?” He asks, eyes narrowing in cleverness. Evident even without speaking it aloud; if she doesn't, no one eats.

_‘ Won’t matter a whit to me. Had my fill earlier, darling.’_

“ Of course, be a shame to wait until it’s all cold.” Rae’s eyes are glassy with hunger, she takes his hand, following along when the well practiced words fall from his lips.

“ Bless us, oh Lord, and these gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

There’s a chorus of clanking flatware, the sound of slurping too and bread tearing. Jamison watches Rae through half lidded eyes, sees her searching the empty spot in front of her where a spoon and knife should be. It takes her less time than he thinks it will, to work it out; until she’s returning his gaze and asking with a terrible sort of halting shyness.

“ Will you give me a bite Jamison, please?” She wets her lips after asking it.

Jamison feels himself filling like air into a sail at the question, but he smiles under her gaze, says, “ Of course.” Taking a heaping spoonful of fragrant, warm soup and presenting it to Rae’s lips. “ Open wide, lovely.”

Tipping the spoonful into her waiting mouth almost makes him shiver, his eyes swimming with memories of their time spent in the hotel room. He barely sees Fly over Rae’s shoulder, dropping her own spoon to the floor.

He hears it pirouette down to the boards, raining the harvest back down onto the ground. He doesn't look away from the wet, pink pit of Rae’s mouth, her soft tongue behind her pearly teeth. Offers her another spoonful, while his other hand arches out over the table for a slice of soft bread.

“ Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy.” Fly sing songs it to no one in particular, ducking and then back again, a rabbit out of a hole with her spoon wiped on the leg of her jeans only once before it’s held tight between smiling lips. Staring holes into the scene before her, though her eyes are hidden.

When he looks away from Rae’s face; after her bowl is half empty, he glances at Judith, Angelita, and Fly. The three of them waiting, a throng wide eyed and troubled with their hair still dull and lank from communal shortage that had plagued them in the past. Their own bowls long emptied, scraped clean with thick slabs of bread and licked clean for good measure.

“ Now that we're all in the possession of full bellies. Care to give me the ins and outs of it Jude?” Jamison turns his good ear towards the head of the table.

“ Seven newcomers, this winter past. All of them converts who've sacrificed justly, sleeping in the bunkhouse as we speak. We’re still looking at houses to place them into, but we’re still keeping them next to the fields. Until we know them, that is.” Judith smiles, it’s big and proud flooding her pinched face like water. “ Then there were twelve the fall before them. It’s hard to keep them straight these days.”

Jamison feels woodsmoke and the heady scent of tea pushing through his hair, into his nose, “ Good on you, can't have anyone causing trouble now that you’ve nearly got this place whipped into proper shape.”

“ Our triumphs belong to the people, and to god. To you Preacher Jamison, you told us how to plant and when. When the rains would come and when the sun would shine true.” Judith says it, suddenly serious again. “ You told us Our Lady would come, arrive like a new wind. And we can feel the change, just like you said-”

Jamison holds his hand up, stopping to give Rae another hearty bite of their good fortune. His own lips parting at the way she eats off the offered spoon, gentle as a lamb. While her eyes swim with troublesome darkness behind her pupils. The contrast makes him shiver, seeing the multitudes contained within her.

He remembers Judith and the others, the world falling back around him. The great long table, the fading walls and cobwebs in the corners. His hand rests back on the table, “ Can’t take the credit for that one, I’m afraid. Just the messenger, I hear the word and tell you like a bullhorn, that’s it. You've done a bang up job with it all, they stay because of you.”

Fly interjects plaintively without missing a beat, “ That and Homesteads’ full as a tick on a fat dog’s back. Near to stacking us like sardines round those parts.”

Angelita and Judith both laugh at that, the former speaks, “ With another year of births we’ll be in similar straights. Fifteen babes, since this time last year and not one expectant lost. We finally have enough hands to take them out of the field after the quickening. And their chambers are running like an oiled machine thanks to Mako’s supply lines.” Angelita is straight and tall as one of the houses outside with happiness, even sitting. “ Plenty of water to send your way, as well. Take two barrels when you leave.”

Jamison watches Rae, letting Angelita and Fly’s talk about supplies wash over his ears. He wants to leave now, his body never did want to sit still. He measures his immaculate knowledge of the floor below his feet, counting steps as though he was walking.

He counts to twelve, twelve times; on the thirteenth the awe is palpable on Rae’s face. The way she leans into new knowledge passing over the table like a second course. Jamison watches her digest the words with her whole body. She’s listening intently, moved to set her elbows on the wood; the good news has her eyes sparkling in the warm light.

“ What's the state of medical care here? I mean- in the areas you control?” Rae asks Angelita, and Jamison’s heart trips along with his next breath.

“ My Lady, there are... Many discrepancies in the state of this place. Not just our territories, mind, but we have clean water unlike the others. We have spirits to keep infection from settling in, and tea leaves to keep the lice at bay, we’ve got transfusion jars and no shortage of jars for blood but death still casts it’s shadow everywhere here.” Angelita tells her truthfully, a soul deep tiredness flickering over her oval face before it cracks like an egg when she smiles, “Like our little Fly here, taking a jaunt through the valley with your guidance.”

“ Yes, I um- I think I understand now.” Rae is in turn measuring the house now, the people in it and the unseen ankle biters in the next room over. Jamison sees a spark within her eyes, glinting with wisdom as shining sides of the stove in the corner. Her hair curls, brown and rich as the bread before them, another gift. “ What do you do when there’s an outbreak? Have you ever dealt with a bout of influenza?”

“ We go to meet our maker. It’s happened before in the past, when the old mayor was in charge of things. He and his ilk just locked his doors and let it pass over. We lost a third of the settlement then, easily forty or roundabouts. That was long before Jamison came here as a child.” Angelita said it flippantly, though across from her Rae’s face had gone white as her clenched knuckles on the table. “ I was young then. I didn't know things could get better. But they do all the time since Jamison came back.”

Judith reaches across the table to fasten her strong, well lined hand around another roll of bread. Opens her mouth, “ I’ll write out a list to send off with you, a record of the past three harvests and births as well. But I can see you all need more rest, it’s a long old drive back to Homestead.”

The sky is darkening again, the sun behind the clouds has sunk behind the buildings. Jamison’s stomach chews on itself instead of food, but there’s plenty of time for that at dawn when they leave. Tonight, he’ll fast again and hear god whispering in his ear; voice deep and rough as stones dragged on steel scraps.

~

Loading the wagon back up, his hands are shaking with excitement. Fly shakes similarly, a nervous stain on the washed out landscape. There are no words between them as Rae dozes in the passenger seat, she was syrupy warm with sleep when Jamison carried her out of the house; and if he had anything to do with it, she’d stay that way until the sun was up.

“ You’re driving Boss-man, I’m still a bit peaky yet. Dunno if I’ll make the best driver as I am, least my side’s stopped hurting for the first time in- hell, in bloody ages.” Fly’s hand plays over her right side, just under her last rib.

They set out with a sputtering engine and a groan from the steering column.

Kilometers are eaten up under the wheels, while the wagon bucks and snorts it’s way through like a snuffling boar. With rubber treads instead of hooves throwing clouds of dry dust high up into the air. The sun peeks into the windows softly at first, like an old friend before it begins glaring into the glass. Jamison squints against it, lowers the eye shield; knowing full well it’s temporary until the path turns East towards the Dividing Range.

 _‘ Cracker to be back in the old stomping grounds, took long enough. It’s all worth it in the end; all for the cause, all the hurting and bleeding and its all led up to this.’_ Jamison muses, watches the speedo arrow angle up and up. _‘ Once you’ve got her back home it’s all over but the crying.’_

The car is warm with three people breathing in it, breathing and not talking. Until Fly opens her window and shoves her head out, up on one haunch and tasting air. He blinks away the wind whipping his blonde hair this way and that, into his lips and up his nose; almost ignores the rattling in his head from the uneven pressure inside.

“ Where are we?” Rae asks, suddenly awake and bleary eyed. Jamison watches in the rearview mirror as she rubs her eyes with the heel of one hand. Behind the small sight he has of Rae, finally taking notice of a very different landscape sprawling out on both sides of the road; the elongated and pitted nose of the wagon cuts through the morning light. Soaks up the sunlight like a cast iron pan.

Jamison feels as though he’s swallowed an icy rock. The road ahead isn’t long but something is already wrong, “ On the low side of the road. The quickest way back, like a rat up a drainpipe. We’ll be there soon, I promise you love; and oh, you’ve never rightly seen anything like it. Nothing like most of the mulga that’s for damned sure.” Jamison’s hands shake a little at the wheel, his throat dry and spasming. Something that looks like a pile of sticks and trashy bits of metal lies on the side of the road like a dead thing.

_‘ That sign shouldn’t be down. What twit took that out? Hardly decent to take out the waypoints, get folks lost in the foothills and they’ll freeze up instead of showing up at our door.’_

“ I didn’t think there would be flowers left...” Rae mutters, turning and watching the scraggly shapes of colorful weeds speed past like oil paintings.

Fly sits back in her seat like a person again, shaking her hair out and looking back at Rae, “You goose, could even say you don’t properly know anything about our little hamlet. It’s special out here. Mountains at our back, and upper lands at the front for the animals and farmlands. It’s not all a blasted hellscape here, not anymore thanks to Jamison’s vision and some elbow grease.”

Rae still watches out her quadrant, if things were different she’d be keeping her eyes peeled for road warriors and raiding parties at the ten and eight, six if her neck was faster and peripheral better than most. Fly riding shotgun would cover noon to three, Sitting up on the window and twisting at the waist to shoot back; and they’d prey no one came up in a blind spot to shoot out their wheels and roll them for all their worth-

Jamison shakes his head, dispelling the past, just cobwebs in the corners of his mind. _‘ Ain’t like that now, that was yonks ago. Mako’s got this road locked down tight.’_

By the time he can see the gentle rise of Homestead’s walls himself, there’s nothing else on either side of the car, just endless scrubby, squat bushes. But there’s some sort of ute he doesn’t recognize up at the gate, could be nothing, could be a trader.

“ I’ll keep you safe.” His voice is croaky and rusty from the tension set up in his face. Cold again, even if the sun warming the land proper, not just peeking. The chill in his body deepening when he recognizes the symbol soldered to the trunk of the strange panel truck. His eyes find Rae again, clinging to her and covering her flesh. “ I’ll keep you, Rae.”

She shivers too, but doesn't look away. As if tendrils sent out from his own mind hold her head straight and proud as a statue, with her neck extending towards his cold, cold body. She’s studying him, like he’s some strange and wild creature to say so.

The car coughs, dies pitifully when they pull through the main gate and off into a whole stable of similarly aged and tired vehicles. Fly is the first out, kicking the door into another, and scampering off ahead. Jamison helps Rae out with his clammy, left hand; soaking up her sun bleached radiance with every blink. She takes his hand but says nothing, swiveling her head this way and that, taking in the squat brown shapes of the outer lying cottages and homes, nothing like the tall, thin, spidery constructions she had seen before.

The streets are empty with most of his followers completing their work away from the houses, it’s like the whole place has saved the thoroughfare for their feet only. Walking past fenders, towards the main cathedral Jamison sees Rae touch her metal leafed digits on sunken trunks and the chipping walls of her new home.

“ Little blessings eh? They’re lucky to have you, even if they don’t know you yet; but all in due time they will.” Jamison holds up his hand, mirroring hers and dragging his long fingers across the dust and familiar dents and dings.

“ What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand what you want from me, I saved your friend; but I’m not an endless font. I can’t fix everything with a snap of my fingers, that’s not how this works, that’s not how anything really works. On this scale... I’d be at it for years.” Rae is looking everywhere but at his face. She looks through the glare on her glasses to find Fly’s back nearly half a block ahead, watches her switch her weight from foot to foot.

“ You have to do as I say. Might be easier at first to stay quiet and learn from me, do you realize what we’re doing? We’re taking the grimy parts of you, the poison they’ve filled you with; all that pride and doubt and removing it. Toss it in the river like a bad egg. You’ll be walking a different path now, I’ll keep the rest of you safe. I’m good at that you see? Keeping things safe.” Jamison watches her jaw clench up, her lips pursing like a flower petal. He resists the urge to kiss her then and there, to taste the dew on her mouth, and anger.

Jamison can tell she doesn't like being ordered about and told what to do. His demands fall across the line of her small shoulders like an ill fitting scrap of clothing. The sight of her gets his blood up, and for a few moments he doesn't feel like he’s soaking in peel liquor, with his skin tightening and cold as a stone.

The sight of the cathedral before them makes her gasp and shake, her eyes drawing upwards to heaven. Wonder reflects in her eyes, replacing suspicion and the nervousness that had sat within her irises like pinpoints with large dark hen’s eggs. Dotting the surrounding areas are smaller towers and proud, tall gathering places like smaller stones rippling outward from one large, reddish and cut gem.

“ If you believe one thing I say today, make it this; devour this beauty with your eyes, don't be shy. It all belongs to you, this is your due finally here at last.” Jamison bends close to whisper it, brushing her hair aside and smelling the slight tang of sweat on the column of her bared throat. He moves her hair further, catching a glimpse of his brand and he can’t help touching it with the barest brush of his fingertips.

Tears spring to the corners of her eyes, but she won’t give him the satisfaction of saying anything.

So they step inside the facade, through the main entrance; decorated by shining cruciforms and bits of animal bones fashioned into candelabras, and making their way past the nave towards the sanctuary. The main altar is hidden behind an expertly forged screen at times like this, between sermons and mass.

Jamison can hear Fly’s excited tones already bouncing off the buttresses and ceiling; accompanied by the low, grinding tones of his most trusted fighter. When they round the corner, he feels Rae jump at the sight of him.

 _‘ Can’t blame her he’s the biggest bloke I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’_ He holds firm to her hand, even as she takes in the sight of Fly bridging the gap of space between them, rubbing Mako’s massive forearms like they’re a beloved pet that just happens to be the size of a ham. She steps closer again, laying both hands atop his chest and retracing the plush lines of muscle and fat shamelessly.

The sight makes Jamison want to leave the room entirely, something roils in his gut and stretches out to his fingertips. Disturbing what little peace he’s managed to find. Though the opposite seems to be true with Rae, with the sheer humanity of the display her sinews are loosening beneath his fingers.

“ Ahem, Rae this is Mako. He’s my head General as it were, no one’s tougher than he is in the whole territory. The whole continent, truth be told, he’s got a god touched gift for violence.” Jamison hopes Mako will save his reacquainting with Fly for later, but he sees him sweep her up in arms as big as the boughs of a tree instead. Brings his face close enough that even with the half mask they’re sharing breath.

“ Hello, Mako. It’s- uh, it’s nice to meet you.” Rae says it loud enough Fly looks over at her, gives her a wink before she’s put down like a bit of china plate.

Mako notices he's there, notices Rae as well stepping off the dias and crossing the apse in a few long strides. He’s formal and quick when he acknowledges her, with a simple incline of his silver covered head. “ Hey. Pleased to meet you Rae. Should I call you My Lady? Or are we waiting till the ceremony to pull that one out?”

Jamison wrinkles his nose, sees Rae’s eyes narrow, appraising the situation. He speaks quickly, “You don’t understand, not yet My Flame. This is my gift to you, these walls will soak up all of your fears from the old world. Empty that gracious heart of yours for our terror, the terror of people forgotten. Your name will change, as is the way of marriage, but not now. Not yet.”

“ Call her what you will, I need to speak with your superior, Rutledge.” Another voice Jamison doesn’t recognize sounds from the choir. His flesh itches with the thought of someone letting themselves in, interrupting-

“ Waiting your turn is what you need, who in the-” Jamison wheels around, eyes alight with fury and humiliation. A stranger standing there, head held high as though he wasn’t about to meet god if an apology wasn't the next word out of his flapping mouth. Jamison can feel his blood threatening to boil away under his skin, weeping from his pores like sweat.

“ Fawkes, the Queen is contesting your right to rule. You may present your champion or you may face her’s yourself. Been waiting around for ages... You abandoned your seat to a steward for what? Some transplant cunny?” The stranger laughs, but he knows he’s safe. All the North over; committees of rulers had gathered and argued over every cesspool and stone worth talking about. Bickering over where you could and couldn't plant potatoes until it had come to blows. Eventually it was roundly decided messangers were not to be harmed.

“ Watch it. Your still speaking to a territory holder...” Mako growls from behind Jamison, looming like a shadow come to life, like retribution.

 _‘ But not today.’_ “ I’ll be taking care of it myself, Mako,” He turns to glance over his shoulder at his General, then back at the stranger, “Bring your bet out into the arena, and we’ll clear this up.” Jamison grinds it out, trying to look diplomatic and pleasant; but only succeeding in appearing pained.

_‘ Not as much as this other bloke will be.’_


	8. Get thee behind me(Pt.1)

Circling the floor of the arena are the carcasses of old cars, back when they still had rubber wheels but now they sit on cinderblocks instead. Many still marked on filthy windows with grease pencil, used to be neon letters outlined in dust, various ailments spelled out in barely legible short hand.

“ You the praying kind Rae?” Fly asks.

“Can’t say that I am- er, well, I’ve never been the type before.” Rae won’t lie, even though it seems to come easy to the woman speaking to her.

“Might oughta think about starting, if Boss-man loses this one, no telling where we’ll end up. Well, I know where I’ll be, wherever Mako is, long as he’ll have me... But you-” Fly sucks on her teeth, makes a tutting noise, and doesn’t say anything more.

‘She doesn’t have to. She’s as good as told you; you’re alone without him.’ Rae feels the knowledge crawling down from her head into her extremities like ice. Gooseflesh breaks out on her arms, prickling the back of her neck painfully. She tries to think of something else, anything else, so she looks at the graveyard of automobiles below.  
‘Must have been a towing yard nearby, to salvage this many... How many people did it take to move them all?’ Rae finds herself wondering, staring down into the sandy fighting pit where Jamison stands opposite the man sent to challenge, kill, and strip him of his titles and the land beneath their feet. If Fly’s words were to be taken at face value; the outcome of this scrape would effect the fortunes of everyone ogling the spectacle, but herself most of all.

The small group of them, Rae, Fly, Mako, and the faraway Queen’s messenger are sitting inside some special box. Near to something you could find in an opera house except spanning the top is some sort of faded animal hide, pulled taut to block out the harsh sun, while its sides are fashioned from arched windows with half their panes missing.

“ Nothing like a bit of bloodsport to wrap up the day in one neat little parcel, really ends it all on an exciting high note, eh?” Fly seems to be addressing everyone at once, yet at the same time no one in particular.

“ I’m not sure I’d say that... Seems a bit- ah, much to me.” Rae avoids using a word like ‘barbaric’ or ‘uncivilized’ but worries it shows in her voice anyway, the way she skips and pauses when Jamison moves past some rusted four door with something like ‘BRKN BTTRFLY VLV’ spelled out on the window behind the drivers’ side.

If Rae looks closely she can still make out blood and a tangle of dark hair caked and caught on the door-handle.

“ Is it true, what they say? That he stole you, like the thief he is?” The messenger’s voice worms its way into Rae’s ear. “ That he’s dead set on keeping you here, for now. How long will that last I wonder...”

Jamison moves faster than she thought he could be, going in low despite his height advantage; but it isn’t enough to unbalance the other man. They grapple for a short time, and there’s a solid punch or three that hit Jamison’s ribs and Rae can practically hear the air leaving his lungs. There’s at least a two stone difference between them in weight, she’s fairly sure. The challenger who’s name has already escaped her is stocky, and packed with more bulky muscle than Jamison ever thought about having.

“ It is...” Rae doesn’t feel like talking right now, but Fly and Mako are surreptitious and silent beside her. Before the former leaves the box entirely, disappearing into the crowd with only a simple gesture from Mako’s massive hand. “ What of it?”

Below the box, the bets are being called, and it shocks Rae to hear that some are betting against their leader. ‘ Didn’t strike me as the type of fellow who would allow that. But no one is saying anything, or doing anything; no secret police coming out of the woodwork to drag them away or beat them in full view of everyone. Maybe just because it would distract from the main event.’

“ Do I hear forty on High Priest Jamison? Who’ll bid up on our Savior? Come on now, it’ll cost you more to fill a sack with salt.”

“ All I’m saying is look at him, he’s a bit short when it comes to sticking to it. He wants you now sure. New toy and whatnot, and a beauty at that, still having all your teeth and those eyes are a treat... But would you bet he still feels that way in a month, or a week even? He’s known for being a loose canon around these parts. What happens when he turns that-” He gestures to the scene below, “Back onto you, and then there’s no one to protect you.” He smiles at her, watches the dust settle below. “How long until he’s tired of you?”

Jamison is giving the competition a wide berth, moving side to side like he can’t decide how to approach. While the other man is pointing at him, then at the burned out, melted carcass of some fiberglass coupe. Saying, “ Hey Holiness, where’s god now? Not about to strike me down with lightning I’d wager, or light me up like a Christmas tree. Gonna make you do the dirty work yourself, I think.”

He moves closer to Jamison, with his arms low and elbows tucked in and his legs slightly bent. Waiting for him to move in again, finally make contact. He doesn't have to wait long, Jamison moves in from the right; let’s his opponent jab, catches it in his right fist and squeezes the knuckles close together, too close from the barely controlled look of pain and alarm from the other man.

“ I- I don’t think... I don't think that’s his angle. He’s got some kind of plan, something strange he’s looking towards. Besides-” Rae feels irritation building behind her eyes, she’s been taken for a ride before, knows the sound of someone trying. “ What is it you’re trying to say? What do you want from me?”

Below, Rae hears the call again, “ Twenty then! On the challenger, who will bid twenty on the new blood?”

Jamison grinds out, “Always preferred to do my own work, truth be told. If you want something done right, you’ve just got to do it yourself.” He jerks his hand forward, back to his side and his challenger moves too, stumbling forward into Jamison’s body and staying there with the back of his torso wide open as while Jamison’s elbow cracks down once, twice, three times over his spine.

“ Fuck off!” The retort is more of a grunt wit the last hit, and he’s dropped down. Pitched into the dirt but grabbing Jamison’s peg leg to bring him down too. They both roll in a puff of dust that settles onto their sweat slicked forms and giving them a uniformity only interrupted by the cuts and bleeding scrapes littering their bodies.

In a second he’s on Jamison, rolled onto him fast as lightning and pinning him down with all of his extra weight while each of his closed fists take turns kissing the rise of Jamison’s freckled cheeks. Slinging blood and spittle into the dirt with each hit, the challenger’s cackling high and mad in his throat but the man below him is silent. The fleshy thudding with each point of contact echoes up the sides of the arena, into Rae’s head and nearly coincides with the nervous flutter of her heart.

“ I have twenty eight now! Twenty and eight on the interloper! Let’s see who fortune favors today, who sits in god’s eye; who’s arse will sit in that big chair in the chapel. Only time will tell, time and blood.”

The challenger’s fists stop moving, his knuckles darkened, caked in blood and filth when he talks not only to Jamison, spread out under him with his remaining heel dug into the earth, but to everyone else in the stands. “ You know what I think? I think you wouldn’t even be here except for those shady characters you surround yourself with. Always needing a crutch, just hopping from one stepping stone to the next; all you know how to do is read a room.”

‘ Get up, get up, get up... You have to get up. Don’t leave me alone here.’ Rae isn’t stupid, and she doesn’t want to even consider what will happen if Jamison isn’t there. He wants her, enough to go through a world of trouble. There’s no guarantee that Fly or Mako, who by all accounts didn’t even seem to be focused on the scuffle, would lift a finger to defend her or keep her fed in this strange place. She looks hard at him on the ground, willing him to sense it and move.

“ All I want is to be making sure you know you aren’t alone, I’ll- we- Her Majesty will help you. All you need to do is give the word and we’ll be gone. You’ll be a guest of her court, safe and protected in a civilized place. Not cooped up with a bunch of dirt farmers and sheep tenders and their mad prophet. It’s no place for a real lady like yourself...” He reaches for her hands, sets his clammy wet fingers over her knuckles, firm and pressing her palm into the arms of her chair. Too hard to come off as anything but desperate.

Jamison spits to the side, a streamer of blood and drool soaking into the soil, he turns his face up again, staring into the man’s eyes, and spits again, catching him on the cheek. Stares up into the stands, scanning through the throng until his vision settles on Rae, leaned forward in her chair. He’s smiling now, with his teeth painted pink.

“ Fucker,” The viscous clot is wiped away with the back of one split knuckled hand, “ Doesn’t change a thing, you’re just a pretender. And that girl you brought back, your new wife to be is it? I’d reckon she’s nothing but a goddamned whore, some slattern you picked up on the outskirts of the cities. You hear me, mad preacher?” The challenger sneers at him.

Jamison’s face darkens as it turns towards the man above him, shadow falling along the lines of his swollen cheeks and split lip.

“ I think I’ve had all the ‘help’ out in these parts I can stomach,” Rae takes a deep breath, tries to extract her hand out from under his, but he just presses harder, “ I said no.”  
‘Get up, please...’ Rae hopes, she almost prays.

It’s like a page has been turned, or a switch flipped; now Jamison’s whole body is tense and coiling with energy, he flips them both, sends the other man rolling like a bug on its back. Pinning him down with both of his arms, veins standing out from his wrists to the sun bleached caps of his shoulders.  
Another call, “ How about another fifteen on His Holiness! Fifteen it is!”

Jamison brings his forehead down on the man’s own, fast and hard. The sound is like a crack of thunder, and the body beneath him shakes and shudders.

“ Mad is it? That’s what they’re saying about me now? That Jamison Fawkes is mad, is it? Just touched in the head, an illusion of power. An empty jacket hung on a hook without anything to pad out my claims.” He moves one of his hands off the challenger’s wrists, slugs him hard across the temple. “ You don't know anything. Ignorant howling from a man who wouldn't know true purpose if it fell on his head. You’re just a lackey.”

Jamison stands, a bit woozy but tall and swift when he lifts the man up, propping him against his own body, making sure to stand him up straight before throwing him face first into another car frame. A crack appears where his head hits the window, sending spiderwebs through the words ‘CRKD STRUTS’. The impact sends a murmur of approval through the crowd. The body falls to the ground again, silent save for the laboring breath through likely broken facial bones. Jamison moves, stands over him with his hands on his hips and stomps once on his diaphragm with his peg, nearly breaking the skin but stopping just before, seeming to change his mind; he sits on his stomach instead.

The messenger makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, shrugs like he didn’t hear Rae. He releases her hand when he notices the look on her face, stricken and unhappy. “ Seems you’re braver than I’d wagered. Hell, I think all my bets have gone up in flames today.” He grimaces at the sight below them, “ So its true then, thats why you aren’t scared, eh? What I’ve heard about you, that you can heal with a touch. You’ve beat death, and that’s why he wants you. What a lucky little thing you are...”

Jamison raises his gleaming, metal fist high above them both, eclipsing the sun for a moment and casting his opponent’s face into shadows. Then he brings it down hard between his nose and eyes, with a sickening crunch, like leaves being crushed beneath his boot. Blood blooms under them both, flowing into the shallow marks made by both of their weight sinking into the loose dust. The man under Jamison seems to fold in on itself, like a puppet with the strings abruptly pulled to the center, then he twitches and starts, thrumming on the ground with frenetic energy.

Rae recognizes the way a person goes out, the body dying shortly after the brain and still twitching like a freshly slaughtered animal. She isn’t close enough to watch the light leave his eyes but it’s close enough she feels sick all the same.

‘Not sure that's it at all. Luck has nothing to do with any of this...’

Jamison hits him again, this time what used to be a face just makes a meaty sound under his metal fist. Pushes in lower, flatter to the ground and the skull keeping most of it contained looking like a bowl of red jello at some Halloween party house from faraway. She sees something shapeless, fatty, and whitish-grey pushing up through the challenger’s hairline like the cock’s comb.

“ That’s it folks, that’d be the end of it! Hope you all were betting smart out here. Looks like High Priest Jamison is the undefeated champion of Homestead, hallelujah!”

The word echoes and goes up through the stands,

“Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah!”

Rae doesn’t say anything.

Soon enough the body is carted off with no ceremony attached to it. Dragged away like a bit of trash, out of sight and out of mind; leaving only Jamison standing in the arena, and even the blackish blood has been sucked up greedily by the sand. People closest to the ground lean over the railing, calling to Jamison, cheering him and ululating until it reaches a dizzying fervor. He stands with his arms loose and languid at his sides, only the bruises decorating his face and the sides of his chest, the way one of his eye’s has been filled and outlined red in blood, the spatters and stains caught on his clothes like red and brown beads him give away that anything happened at all.

‘All this violence, and they’re cheering. A man was beaten to death right down there, had his head caved in like a melon; and it sounds like it’s New Years in the stands.’ Rae grimaces at the too fresh memory. Looks at Jamison’s face turned up towards the sun, already purpling around his eyes and across his cheekbones like a bandit’s mask. ‘Shows me how fast life can change, how quick the old reality fades away. This is normal now I suppose.’

Behind her, Mako lets out a dark chuckle before speaking, “ Good fight, I guess if that’s your best you’ll be wanting the corpse wrapped up all pretty for you?” There's a lilt in his voice, like this is all very humorous.

The messenger colors beside her, eyes flashing with something that could be a snappish reply, but his eyes travel up and down Mako once more when he turns to look back at him and it dies there in his pupils. “ That... Won’t be necessary. I have a long way back, and nowhere to store the stinking thing. Dispose of it, however you see fit, by whatever custom guides that.”

“ To the pigs it is then. Be more useful that way than he ever was sucking air, back to the land as we say. ”

The crowd starts to fall silent, and when Rae looks she sees that Jamison has raised his hand, scanning the crowd with a keen set of eyes, until, finally his gaze falls to her.

Rae sucks in a breath at the same moment he opens his own mouth.

“ Serviam. When you are called by god and heaven to serve; no matter how imperfect, and no matter how you may fear, there is only one answer for you.” Jamison seems to be speaking just to her, but his voice echoes and booms out from the arena; stirring every person present. “When the trumpets sound and your name rings out from the clouds and on every drop of rain fallen to earth, when the sun shines out; blinding you to all but divine purpose there is one answer... Serviam.” Jamison turns, looks hard at the attending crowd, holding out his right arm straight in front of him, still gleaming with blood clinging onto the casing and winding into the inner workings in a pattern that enhances the pitting and world weariness it seems to carry. He seems to look down the line of his limb; as though his knuckles are sights on a rifle and he’s taking aim at the souls of everyone. “ We are, all of us, to eagerly serve god in whatever fashion he sees fit to send. Remember the cry of Saint Micheal, when Lucifer would not, he responded thus, ‘serviam’. We must all utilize our gifts for the glory of god and heaven, to not, to refute yourself is to refute gods image within you.”

‘ He's still talking to me, even now. Even after all that, he’s focused on me using my “gift”, as he puts it.’

Rae grimaces, feeling uncomfortable and ready to be away from the death overshadowing any other thing she might be feeling. The mild interest she’s had about the arena has faded into something that feels more like exhaustion. She finds herself staring past Jamison, into the space between them both, watches heat rise off the bodies of the cars.

“ You’re positive I can’t throw you a lifeline, can’t tempt you in another way?” The messenger tries to wheedle her one last time, his hand finding hers again. His fingers shake above and around the top of her own, looking back at him she sees he’s not even looking at her but down at Jamison.

Upon further examination she realizes Jamison is glaring back at him.

“ Positive, and serious as a heart attack.” She watches Jamison, sees him metering the situation, the way something darkens in his eyes at that moment. The set of his body changes, hitches his shoulders up high and tight around his neck and both hands mimic claws grasping, the way his legs stabilize to his stance and then it melts away as fast as it set in. He shakes his head a bit, moving sweat slackened hair out of his face. He addresses the crowd, “ Now go, glorifying the lord by your life. Go and announce the gospel of our lord.”

~

Rae is accompanied back to the cathedral by Mako, and then spontaneously by Fly as well.

‘ Didn’t even know she was there until she laughed.’ Rae turns a bit, watches her lean in close to Mako, walking on her toes for several yards, she’s loud enough now Rae can tell there’s something being said. ‘ Just enough to hear words, but I can’t make out anything.’

“ Hmph, that’s gonna go over well.” Mako’s lower tones are easier to pick out from the sounds of the town coming back to life, people filling houses like air into a lung; though he says no more.

Fly shrugs in reply, settling back down onto the balls of her feet and looking Rae up and down asking her through a bit of a flush and slight heaviness in her voice, “ How’d you enjoy the show? Really something to get to see a show your first night in town, like getting struck by lightning in the kindest way possible.”

“There wasn’t anything kind about... any of it.” Rae watches her smile at that, pulling up the corners of her slightly chapped mouth.

“That’s the damn truth, if I’ve ever heard it. But, then again, not much room in these parts for kindness, and I’m a bit of a mean girl myself I suppose.” Fly steps behind her, touches the sides of Rae’s shoulders and turning her slightly to the right instead of leading them through the main doors. “ Gonna take a bit of a detour, wasn't exactly a smooth settling in. You haven't even seen your rooms or nothing, but that’ll have to wait. It’s high time we washed the city off you, you’ll be enjoying the best water pulled up from the earth itself.”

Fly leads her to another area, a separate building but still within a stones throw of the cathedral. The doors of which are tall and solid, thickened by reinforcement and some kind of weather stripping so that no light or sound escaped beneath them.

“ Where are we? A bath house of some sort?” Rae smells the steam as it hits her face, the feeling of water droplets forming on her skin in response makes her breathe deeper.

“ Sort of. Really just for His Holiness, after the incident we can’t really let people in willy-nilly. Er- Boss man and you now of course, but no one else really, unless we’ve done a real job of it and ask him nice.” Fly makes a sort of gagging noise while they pass an old locker room, with its wooden benches so cracked and parched you wouldn’t want your bare ass anywhere near them, bristling with splinters and mysterious stains.

“ ‘The incident’, huh? Sounds like there’s a decent tale to tell there.” Rae can’t help but smile, when they round the corner, there’s an open area with a circular and many sided sink. Arching spigots like the necks of water birds are dull with age and scum but still beautiful. Fly sits in one of the bowls of the sink, swinging her legs with and motioning to another doorway,

“ It is at that, it is at that, but you’ll have to hear it straight from the horses arse- heheh, mouth that is. Boss gets to tell that one, can’t spoil one of his most glorious victories.” She scratches the top of her hat, wipes her upper lip of the ambient moisture. “ You’ll go through there, when you’ve undressed. Don’t worry, the water’s fine, its always perfect; not at all like bathing in warmed rainwater. Groundwater is funny like that.”

Rae makes an affirmative sound; starts to undress, slowly, and a bit sheepishly even though its not the first time she’s shucked her clothes off in the recently. “A bath is a bit more intimate than a costume change. Are you going to be here the whole time?” She hesitates, then, removes her glasses; folding them neatly atop the dress.

“ Not a chance, dolly. Got some stratagem to go over in the war room, information to deal out, and I’m a busy lady myself. Need to hear the gossip from Mako, find out what wheels been greased while I was out and about.” She pushes herself up and out of the sink, “ Don’t worry you’re in fine...Hand I suppose.” Moving out the way they came in without a look back.

Rae feels naked standing there now, because she is, and with the slight chill creeping into her, decides to go and find the water as quickly as possible. The tiled floor gets slicker with each advancing step, she squints at the grout between them, surprisingly clean despite it’s age. Reaching the edge of the pool it’s clear that the area used to be some sort of a spa or sauna, Rae looks at the empty jacuzzi area, just a dark pit filled with old lawn chairs, then back into the main pool. ‘ Looks like one of those Roman baths with the makeover it’s had. All the wall hangings and cruciforms sure do dress it all up.’ Stepping into the warm water is pure relief. The mist hangs so thickly in the air she can barely make out anything without her glasses.

“ ‘With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ Do you like it, love? This is one of my favorite places to be...” Jamison’s voice makes her startle, she’s covering herself now and descending the stairs faster.

“ Gah- you scared me! I-I-I didn't see you there.” Rae sits down as soon as the water is deep enough, covering her up to the collarbones and she's thankful for the modesty, even when the backs of her knees tighten and tingle with the almost-too-much heat of the water. She’s careful to keep her hands out of the water, ‘ Of course he’s here, they wouldn't leave me here alone... Maybe they're worried I’d drown myself.’

“ Didn’t mean to give you a scare, thought you’d jump at the chance to scrub off all that road dust.” His words are soft but Jamison’s eyes tell a different story altogether.

“ You’ve never seemed adverse to it before, in fact, I’d say you love scaring people. Even me, especially me.” She looks him in the eye, or tries too. Easier said than done right now, he’s sitting too, soaking in the water with little eddies of pink around him, blood sloughing off his skin and into the pool. His torso and chest rise out of the water and Rae is surprised to notice his prosthetic is off and laid carefully on a bench away from them.

“ I won’t lie to you, hardly seems right, downright sinful in fact; you’ve got me there. Nothing gets the blood up like a healthy dose of adrenaline. Sharpens the mind, you know.”

‘ If his arm is off than his leg is too... I could try to fight him off, he’s probably still tired from that fight. Crack his head against the tile, get out and grab my clothes and go... Where?’ It plays like an action movie in Rae’s head; a heart pounding exchange of blows, a glorious escape, and then she’s gone like a shot. It’s all too easy to imagine, and because of that she knows it won’t work.

He’s watching her look back at him, and on some level Rae wonders if he knows what she’s thinking about; if he can tell she was trying to remember the amount of footsteps it took to get back to the locker room and back out again. If Jamison could see the play by play of a chance she’d never take shining out from behind her pupils.

“ You never did give me an answer, Little Flame... Do you like it?” Jamison is still pursuing it, looping back around to it like a knot. “ Took forever and a day it felt like, to get this place started up again, had to rebuild the pump from scratch. But it was all worth it, all the blood, sweat, and tears that got us here. You were too, if you’re wondering that.”

“ It is really lovely to have a good soak... Even if the blood coming off you tinges the water.” Rae sees bits of another person still clinging in his hair, red against yellow, like some kind of snake from back in the states.

“ Was that so hard? Admitting something I’ve done is good. I’ve wanted to hear you say it, been feeling close to dying to hear you say it. Your word is second only to heaven’s own tongue if you ask me.”

‘ California Kingsnake, that’s the one.’ Rae thinks, puts her hands further up on the back wall, breathes in deep. ‘ Non-venomous, but they put on a good show. Curling and imitating rattle snakes when they're threatened.’ She doesn’t say anything though, she’s already given him what he wanted.

Jamison’s eyes are heavy on her body, peering through the distortion of the water.

‘ Maybe not everything he wants.’ Rae can't say she isn't doing the same thing as he, watching the lines of his form seeming to move and rearrange, only catching a clear picture every other moment. ‘ Focus, dammit.’

“ What is it you want from me? I’ve seen your little display, and you want me here now, but why?” Rae rotates her wrist, tries to not think about sodden air getting into all the nooks and crannies.

“ Could use some help with the bruises, this shiner’s killing me...” His eyes and cheeks are still yellow, bridged over his nose with green like a pair of swimming goggles. “ Really let him do a number on me for a bit there, tell me true, love; were you scared?”

Jamison’s hand closes around her wrist, up her arm stretched between them, just within his reach, and he’s pulling her closer. The memory of him doing the same to the challenger plays in her mind’s eye, the tide of battle changing.

“ Yes.” ‘And I’m scared now, too.’ Rae scoots closer, until they’re sitting side by side with her hand moved to cradle the far side of his jaw. The warmth from her nanites is hot, hotter than the water, making both of them shiver.

“ Don’t worry, Little Flame. Takes more than that to take me out, god’s made me hard to kill, in fact, I’ve not been beat yet. I’ve got a spotless record of keeping my hide on my back where it belongs.” Jamison pushes his face into her palm, nuzzles against the metal like he’s a comfortable pet.

“ Came close though, when I found you. A bit too close for comfort, so now you’re keeping me here as assurance. Is that it?” Rae keeps prying, hopes the comfort of her healing will yield answers.

The heavy air within the room seeming to turn tangible, sensate, and supple like a living thing.

“ ‘Therefore what god has joined together, let no one separate.’ I’m certainly keeping you. Assurance for me, and the whole of Homestead. You belong to god first, myself second: who is god’s doings on earth, and to all the believers as well. Your presence here will secure what we’ve made here. Our kingdom on earth, and you, a queen.” Jamison nearly whispers it, just audible above the sound of water moving when he leans closer still.

The water’s pressure around her, like the skin on the back of her neck, seems to tighten. Rae remembers the way he felt between her legs, in that warm room at the top of the long, skinny home, with light pouring in through the large windows.

“ ‘Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are fire, the very flame of the lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.’ ” Jamison’s voice raises higher, echoing slightly off the tiles.

“ Love... That’s what you’re calling it. We call it kidnapping, assault and battery, where I come from.” Rae’s mood blackens, feeling no comfort in the words Jamison uses to ply every other ear in this place. She thinks of the dark wings of the birds she passed in the street, the way they stayed, staked their claim proudly, rudely, even when she and Fly passed by.

‘ Little rogue rulers, just like him. Opportunistic, it’s all part of some massive scheme.’ Her fingers tighten around the angles of his jawline, a numbed gesture of her unhappiness. But she is silent, ossified, and waiting for him to continue. ‘ He’s planning something, and he’s about to tell me what.’

“ Where you come from is full to the brim with wickedness and idolatry. The city is just noise, filth, and scum; a temple, built on rotten foundations. Bloated with favors given, sunken where favors are taken from others.” Jamison makes a gagging sort of noise, swallows it back down. “ So I’ve saved you, like you saved me. Repaid you in kind the only way I could, with a life for a life. ‘ Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?’ Don’t you see my Flame, most blessed one, we’ll be married at the solstice. ” Jamison’s voice rises to a din, through the humid air.

No one talks now, they both seem to stare at one another for several slippery moments, Rae lets out a wheezing, stunned breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. Jamison mirrors her with his own exhalation, ‘ haaah’ easy and slow by comparison. Both of them hold each other’s gazes, as if considering now, the absurdity of one another’s lot. A supposed man of god, and an ill-gotten charge, now bound by the promise of matrimony. With something like honesty nestled between them.

Jamison flicks his hair away from his forehead, now drooping with sweat and sodden air. Then, curling his lips over his teeth, smiling at Rae. Her hand still against his face, draining the excess blood from around his burst capillaries, and his eye clearing of discoloration, he kisses her.


	9. Get thee behind me(pt.2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that's a good run of plotting and some good character developing for our girl Rae. Some interludes into Fly and Mako's jurisdiction to pad out a budding mystery afoot for a change of pace as well. 
> 
> Soon we'll be back to some of the more *ahem* titillating bits of this story.

“ Another three since last month.”

“ Hmph, that’s gonna go over well.” Mako says it, deadpan and nearly sighing. He knows the look he shoots Fly is withering, showing just how truly tired he really is, tired of leading in another’s absence. Not the first time he's done so in his life, played at commanding, but without the ignorance of youth, not knowing any better; he likes it even less.

Fly makes a noise in her throat, clear she doesn't particularly care if their fearless leader likes it or not. Her intel is very nearly always good and definitely worth following up. She moves on, up to their charge, fills the air with conversation and leaving Mako to his thoughts.

‘ Maybe shit could’ve been different back in the A.L.F. with one like her doing our snooping.’ Mako can’t help thinking about it, but he pushes it from his mind as quick as he’s able. ‘Useless to think about, done is done. Dead and buried as everyone from that time; dead as those three will be if we don’t hustle.’

Both women turn to the right, towards the baths while Mako pushes the main doors open and walks straight back to the war room. The sun going down, casting the area in a sleepy sort of golden half light. A map of the continent fills up most of a circular table, with Homestead and other nearby areas of Jamison’s influence clearly marked with red ink. The other territories, a sea of blue, green, or yellow.

Closing his eyes to the image gives him an impression behind his eyelids, an entire mass of land outlined in the blood cells crawling sluggishly through capillaries. ‘ A country remade in blood. Drowned first, now raised back up in nearly the same way.’ He wants to sit down, but settles for leaning against one of the warm, worn walls. That's the least of it, really he wants to sleep but there's still work to be done once Fly makes her way back.

He doesn't have to wait long for her to slip in. Glowing from spending several minutes in the bath-house, but he can see from the set of her shoulders, the way she locks her knees when she stands next to the table instead of keeping her stance loose, that she’s exhausted too.   
“ I’m gonna be off into the lower wards, just outside of cottage quarter. Some shopkeep or something.” Fly tells him, still looking at the map. “You’re right, as usual. I don’t want to go in seeing the Boss with bad news if I’ve got nothing good to go with it.”

“ And? You're telling me why? So I know where to send a clean-up crew or...” Mako trails off into silence, lets it grow between them. Baiting her is cheap, but he’s not too good to play.

“ Hey, I just wanted you to know, I have a lead. Or something like, anyhow, I could use your particular brand. If you’re feeling right...” She smiles, he knows she’s batting her eyes a bit behind the eyewear, even though there's no need. “ Could use some of that muscle out in the lower quarter. Got an impression to make on the neighborhood if I’m right. If I ain’t, well, nothing’s wrong with a little reminder to keep in line. Especially for those newly come.”

“ Yeah, nah, yeah, I got you.” Mako cracks his knuckles, shakes out the stiffness from his arms. Crossing the room to stand beside her, “ Ready when you are.”

“ I was born ready, love. Get this out of the way, and we can make a proper set up of your room; wrapped up in each other, not leaving until we decide to.” Fly leans on him, tucks her head against his forearm for a moment.

Mako’s never felt like getting a good beating over with this quickly before.

~

The main cathedral was certainly impressive, but the view she has from this upper floor, is nothing short of incredible. Framed by a large, arching window at least twelve feet tall, Rae can see the whole city. The arena sitting towards the center, along with the her new home both acting like the hub of a wheel, with other buildings fanning out from them like spokes. The walls rise up in the distance, effectively casting much needed shade outside of their reach, enough that tall whippity grass and squat, sharp looking bushes can grow. Goats move about on the landscape like groups of specks; just ants or fleas from this far away.

‘ Can't argue with his results. It certainly seems to be working out here, there's people and animals; all living and, for all intents and purposes it could almost be another place if you squint. Some historic rural area, preserved for sight seeing types. Like one of those old “Depression” tourist towns from back home.’ She thinks of home, her real home; before everything, before the accident and her subsequent reassignment that was truly nothing more than a place to waste her life away out of the government’s hair.

‘Stop. It’s over, you’re not going back there.’ Rae feels a sort of sorrow, something hollow and wounding in her gut, like swallowing too much cold water at once.

Jamison had led her here after their surprise communal bath, holding her hand and telling her all about her new life in ‘ his country’. Told her about the livestock and crop yields here, about how they had no minerals, gems, or scrap to mine but made their wealth from what the land willingly provided. He said nearly everything was alive here, and they could expect rain semi-regularly from living close to the foothills of the Dividing Range, unlike the place they had just come from. Puffing up proudly when Rae told him, truthfully, that this sort of community was an amazing achievement.

“ It’s a wheel, see? Drives itself mostly once you get everything set up right, life wants to continue on it’s merry way. People want to live and live well, they’ll help you help them, long as it takes. Our land is beautiful because we’ve all worked hard, tilled the earth, sweated, and broken our backs for years.” Jamison says it, at her side. Where previously he had been watching her drink in the landscape with the eyes of a firehawk, now he’s working towards something. Flushing out some sort of prey now that he has her humbled in front of all creation.

“ And you want me to help keep this ‘wheel’ steady, is that it?” Rae glances sidelong at him, sees the excited shiver make it’s way down his long torso.

“ Now you’re getting it, I can’t do it all by my onsie. Mako and Fly are good, there when you need a skull broken, fingernails pulled, or something lifted; but not good for building us up. See, they’re the controlled burn, getting rid of filth and rot so new seeds come up healthy... But we need someone who can sow goodness into Homestead.” Jamison turns to face her, sunlight slanting against his nose and lips.

“ So here I am.”

“ Here you are indeed, Rae. Sent to us, right where you belong.” Jamison takes her hand and brushes his lips against her shining knuckles; when the sun hits them, it casts a glow like he’s got a mouthful of fire. When he speaks next, every single tooth looks gold, “ Let me show you the rest of your quarters, an apartment fit for a Queen, but you’re so much more.”

She acquiesces, rising to follow him to the farthest wall and another window and gasping when she looks at what’s in front of them.

‘ Books! A whole wall of them, there must be a hundred here or more.’ Rae can't help but smile, reaching out one hand to touch a slightly burnt spine of ‘Jane Eyre’. “ Didn't take you for the type...”

“Thought I couldn't read, did you?” His voice is sharp suddenly, and tight. When she looks up at him, Jamison’s jaw is set harshly and his neck tense; waterfalling down his body until even his stomach is jumping with it. She suspects he isn't even really talking about her now, or he’d remember seeing her snooping in his diary; he’s clearly somewhere else, thinking about an unkindness done to him by some other.

“ No... I just honestly didn’t take you for the romance novel type.” Rae is quick to defuse the situation, turning to look out the window again instead of the extensive library. ‘Pissing him off is the last thing I need right now.’ She touches his arm gently, watching him tense even further if that was at all possible, but only for a second. Rae hears him exhale, feels him relax into her hand and clear his throat.

‘Phew, there we go. Now we’re getting somewhere.’

“ I collect them, all kinds; everything I can get my hand on from cookbooks to... Well, to that sort of thing. Hmph, you could fill a book with all the things you don't know about me... Maybe a few, in fact. But, it’s mutual at least. I uh-” Jamison looks down the line of his nose at her, going nearly crosseyed for a moment, “ I don't know a lick about you either, excepting you’re god touched and special. How did you end up here anyhow? Ending up in Oz, within spitting distance of the end of all things; seems like someone had it out for you when you really think.”

“ It’s-” Rae stops and starts, moves her hand from Jamison’s freckled forearm to the warm pane of glass in front of them, “ A long story, See, I had an accident of sorts. Nothing I didn't sign up for but, things have a way of turning out funny. It’s how I got these-” She inclines her head towards her forearm stretched out in front of her, sees her own eyes shining too. “ I told you it’s just tech. They never meant for them to stick, the gauntlets were meant to be removable; so any one could slap them on and use the nanites to heal anyone who needed it.”

“Anyone? Or did they mean soldiers?” Jamison asks, Rae watches him scrutinize her in the reflection.

“ Soldiers first, but it was always intended for mass use. Once it was perfected I’m sure it would’ve been cleared for civilian use... But it never got that far. There was an accident, and these things ended up fused to me. So now the DoD was out millions with only one medic to show for it; I don’t know, I guess they were embarrassed so I was sent away to help with one of the free sister clinics my program was affiliated with.”

Rae drags in a breath, brings her hand back from the window to wind around the opposite wrist. Her fingers drum out a nervous pace on her forearm.

“ God chose you for this, and they sought to overturn his judgement. They weren’t satisfied with one miracle; it’s never enough for those types, rife with avarice, as they are. So you were sent away to rot away in seclusion- No more.” Jamison makes a chopping motion through the air, shakes his head like he’s chasing away insects. “ And isn’t that the way of it; only wanting to heal their loyalists, while everybody else goes on without. That’s a recruitment tactic if I’ve ever heard one, ‘ stick with us and you’ll be apples. Don’t join and you can pay like the rest of em, god help you.’ ”

Rae grimaces, “ You know, it’s not like this back there. Everybody gets what they need, insurance helps-”

“You’re telling me, that everyone where you come from can go to the doc’s whenever they need to? No matter who they are? From the richest landowner to the smallest sharecropper, really?” He turns her face from the window, so she's looking into his eyes. Jamison waits quietly for an answer, for Rae to mull it over.

“ N-not exactly, most everyone with insurance can go. But... Not everyone is that lucky.” Rae finishes lamely. “ It isn’t fair, I’ll give you that; but it’s what we have.”

“ Wouldn't it be better to work towards a better world? To be part of something, really part of it; instead of just used and thrown away and forgotten. Rae, you’re something new and beautiful. Nothing’s like you in the whole of the world, god chose you to have these healing hands, chose that they would be part of you forever.” Jamison smiles then, really smiles and the setting sun hits the right side of his face, washing out nearly every feature. Illuminated seemingly from within, his skin is smooth and golden and so very young in that moment. Contrasting harshly with the depth of his eyes and thinness of frame. “ ‘Each one’s work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.’ ”

“ New and beautiful, huh?” Rae smirks back, winces at the fiery light pouring in from the window. “ You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Jamison. I’ll give you that.”

He nods, seeming to take that for an answer.

They both share a companionable silence, watching the orange sun sink beneath the horizon. Rae can feel Jamison stealing looks at her, every other moment, only to turn back and look ahead. His left hand wanders, searching for her own and not resting until he's locked fingers with her.

‘ To be new and beautiful, to be part of something... It does sound wonderful. Kidnapping and weird religious overtones aside, and the whole arranged marriage thing. Guess I never really thought I’d be the marrying kind.’ Rae looks up at the side of Jamison’s face, doesn’t look away when he returns it.

“ Ah, one... One more thing.” Jamison turns away again, stretches both their arm spans until he’s just barely gripping her hand. “ Come on in. She’s ready to be settled...” He's calling towards a door she didn’t notice before, built like it’s part of the wall and well disguised into a far corner. Rae had fully expected to see Fly again at first, but someone else ducks through instead; another woman, small like a bird and lean as Jamison is.

“ Rae, this is Zephyr.”

Her shift brushes her bony ankles, solid black and wrapping up into a sort of hood that drops back when she turns her face up to look at Rae.

“ Holy fuck- er, sorry. It’s just-” Rae feels her eyes nearly popping out of her head. ‘ Her face is... Who did this to her?’ Zephyr’s mouth was scarred and sutured shut, save for small openings at each corner. “ Nice to meet you.” She finishes sheepishly, the moment was already out there, Zephyr had heard her outburst and seen the look on her face.

She smiles, as much as she’s able to, with wide kind eyes more so than her mutilated mouth. Tilting her head a bit with what Rae hopes is understanding.

“ Don't worry Love, wasn't me that did that. Someone else’s handiwork... But she’s kept the sacrifice as her badge. She’s been touched by god as well, in a way that isn’t yet apparent to us. But all in good time, until then she lives here with us. I suppose. Zephyr here, will be your attendant. She’ll help you and keep you company... See I can’t always be with you.” Jamison tells her.

“ Why not?” Rae asks him, doesn't know why she asks because it’s not like their time together has been a world of fun. ‘ But I’m used to seeing him now. He’s just got done telling me how important I am here and now he’s off doing what?’

“ The war of course, it’s going badly. I’ll be up to my armpits with that business, now that I’m back.” Jamison waves Zephyr towards the bed, where she busies herself shaking out the linens. “ It’s not like the Battle for Endtimes back when I was a lad. Back when Mako was young, fierce, and blackheaded as Fly if you’d believe it. Nothing so vulgar and obvious, now it’s a sort of Cold War, like back from your part of the world way back when.”

“ In my experience, war is always going badly, cold or no,” Rae says. “ So that challenger earlier on... That isn’t a one time thing here? It happens a lot, the fighting, I mean.” She squeezes Jamison’s fingers, feels his knuckles, hard as diamond points between her own. Remembering how they were split before their bath.

“ Fighting means your alive here. If we aren't fighting, we’re dying. Violence here is a way of life, our way, ‘ if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.’ ” Jamison releases her hand then but steps closer until his chest is only a hairs breadth away from Rae. Continues speaking lowly, “ ‘For he is the servant of god, an avenger who carries out god’s wrath on the wrongdoer.’ ”

Rae finds her eyes closing at the words, ‘ Damn, but he is good at that. Very skilled in his oration.’ She shivers, almost feeling the sensation of falling although she’s standing still. Feels herself tipping forward the barest inch, enough to feel the heat pouring off him.

“ And you’ll be helping me Rae, my beauty... But I have to leave you now; I’ll be back for you, for vespers.

At that she feels a warmth settling in her that has nothing to do with sun or proximity.

~

The sun was down by the time he and Fly are at their destination. Fingers of darkness wrapping around nearly every area of the small cafe and filth grips the wall like a coat of paint. Gloom and the familiar coolness of the night came in from every crack and hole, it was a blessing he looked forward to every night, but this one especially. Working in the blinding, unrelenting heat made for a shitty, rushed job more oft than not.

No one had set foot in this building for a long time by the looks of it. A thick layer of hairy looking dust covered the floor like a carpet, until it had been disturbed by three sets of bootprints; two pairs of eager feet, one pair, not so eager. The area being used as a temporary detaining room is circular with old, high ceilings; moulding encircles them and the sounds of whimpering and pleading play off the uneven surface rather well if anyone asked Mako.

He’d been listening to Fly work her magic for near on an hour already. Until the screams ran together, sounded into one long, haunting tone like an old car alarm then petering out into the hoarse bark of overused vocal chords. Now their mark is reduced to pained begging. Mako leans forward on the stack of tires he’s using for a seat, close enough to see the slight puff of condensation that leaves the poor bastard’s mouth with each exhale. Monitoring his vitals, nearly unconsciously, second nature to him now as much as drawing his own breath.

“ Now, now, this won’t take but another minute of your time mister-” Fly sounds genial, giddy even, her exhaustion forgone in the rush of pushing a needle beneath a nail of the man’s already over extended thumb. “ Gotta let me have it now- who exactly keeps crashing our party here? Who is it that stole three little ones?”

“ It’s the Queen from faraway-” He bleats, face bright red and wrinkled with agony, like a tomato or a baby.

“ No, that's not it, you’ll have to do better than that. I didn't fall off the turnip cart yesterday, this-” Fly gestures meaningfully at nothing, “ is something different, and something not possessing of her fingerprints... They’re sacred, why would someone take and vanish the anklebiters away, why would you risk it. I just don’t understand it myself; but that's why you’re here, to help me understand.”

“ Just- just stop, and why do you think I know anything? I’m an honest man, a t-t-true servant of the lord and our high priest. I deal in trinkets, devotional bits and bobs, nothing more.” He hangs his head, peering through the jagged lines of his lank hair to look at Fly’s face, but his small, shrimpy eyes wander to Mako’s hulking shape just behind her.

“ Dealing in a great deal more than that, word about town is. See, I been asking around, and even in the next town over, you were quite the known flesh peddler. Tell me, how many nights of old Judith’s life did you hawk away back before all this?” Fly keeps on him, taps the nail-head with the tip of one finger while the blood wells up beneath his thumbnail.

“ That’s not- fuck! That’s not fair, I've been saved; I-I-I repented and tithed...” The man grits his teeth together, hard enough the pop in his jaw can be heard echoing in the room. “ You can’t do this, I’ve not been charged with anything; what good is it to torture an innocent man?”

“ Ain’t you been listening to the good word? Do you got dirt in your ears? Boss-man says we’re all sinners.” She draws in close and taps his sweaty nose at the same time her other hand forces the needle up, up until his nail is sitting at a forty five degree angle. “ In fact, I’d say you’re sitting pretty right up there with me and my man here. Can you even go a week without breaking heaven’s commandments?”

“ Yes!” He starts to lie again, and Mako cracks his knuckles behind Fly.

“ I’m starting to get impatient... The longer you’re not talking, the madder I get.” Mako growls, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders. “ Give him over Fly, if he don’t talk with one fingernail up, he ain’t talking for the other nine.”

“ Fine, fine, fine. Go get him then, love.” Fly turns around neatly, trading Mako spots and settling down on the tires herself.

Mako wastes no time, he’s thankful for the half mask, as it disguises the smirk of satisfaction he has at the pure alarm in the man’s eyes when he takes the smallest of his fingers between two of his. He keeps eye contact, staring straight at him when he bends it back parallel with the back of his hand. The scream their mark lets out doesn’t even make him blink.

“ Every minute goes by that you don’t give me what I want, I break another finger... and if I run out of those, I’ll start in on your toes too.” Mako tells him flatly. “ So why don’t we make this quick?”

“ I-I-I don’t know who wants them. I just deliver, make the run, pick up the dough- ah, and th-then I leave. Please I’m telling you I don’t know anything else...” He’s breathless and looking green around the gills, doesn't matter however, he can talk just the same after he vomits.

“ Where are you dropping them? You just leave them out in the middle of nowhere or is there some post box I don't know about, some sort of retainer?” Mako grabs his ring finger, but doesn't bend it completely backwards.

Not yet anyway.

“ I-it’s outside your limits, close to the border of Three Ways. Along the old Barkly Highway, in a little shack there’s a special box, some kind of city shite. I just put them down in there and leave. I never seen anyone, hand to god.” After rushing that out of his mouth, their man is silent and sagging in the chair. Mako releases his finger after a fashion with nary another word.

Fly, by contrast has leapt off of the tires, flinging her arms wide open with her sweatshirt sleeves flapping. She hugs Mako’s side, plants a kiss just above the start of his tattoo and starts untying the bonds that hold the recently confessed. Mako steps back to watch the way she bends and twists to get at his ankles too, getting less and less forgiving by the second. This whole process took too bloody long, if anyone asked him; and now it looks like he won’t even get to kill this miserable little shit as a consolation.

“ We really letting him go? After all that fucking trouble dragging it out of him?” Mako grits his teeth, tries to sound neutral.

“ Not by a long shot, he’s gonna rot in the dungeon for a good long while, methinks. Got a date with some of our toys. Just like a certain messenger...” Fly heaves him up on unsteady feet, one of his arms forcibly slung over her shoulder, mostly dragging him along the dirty floor. Mako follows them for about five steps, before he taps Fly on the free shoulder to take her weeping, stinking burden as his own.

The footprints in the dirt are trampled again and again, until they're less like individual prints and more like the dragging belly tracks of a snake.


End file.
